Regulation

Local government lawyers have obtained a QC’s opinion in a dispute with the Solicitors Regulation Authority over their ability to provide reserved legal activities to external bodies and individuals, it has emerged. The move follows complaints that the SRA was forcing councils to set up ABSs.

A sole practitioner who brought a “cataclysm” upon himself by failing to protect the interests of children when acting as a trustee, leading to them not receiving the legacies they should have done from two wills, has been struck off and ordered to pay £65,000 in costs. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said Timothy John Wilkinson “blamed everyone else”.

Plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce a centrally assessed Solicitors Qualifying Examination could create an “even greater diversity problem” for the profession, the Law Society has warned. The society said it could be a “huge issue for those without financial support”.

The Legal Services Board has said it expects the cost of regulating lawyers to be “going down, not up” as it approved a minor increase in the cost of practising for barristers. It said barristers should be given “much greater information” about how their money is spent.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority, once criticised for taking too long to approve alternative business structures, is now regularly approving applications from legal disciplinary practices in only two weeks, it has emerged.

The Law Society does not oppose non-graduates becoming solicitors, despite its chief executive saying earlier this week that they would devalue the qualification, it said yesterday. Catherine Dixon had written that the SRA plan to allow non-graduates to qualify had the potential to damage the profession’s reputation.

The presence of legal professional privilege creates a “serious distortion to the competitive environment” of the legal services market, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has argued. The ICAEW said some law firms marketed themselves on the basis that their advice was confiential.

The Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority yesterday drew the battle lines that will define the argument over independent regulation of the legal profession. The question was not whether the regulatory arms of bodies such as the Law Society should be independent – which the government said last year they should be – but what functions they would have under a new settlement.

A sole practitioner who refused to close his firm after failing to find indemnity insurance has been struck off and ordered to pay £20,000 costs. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal described Anthony Alabi as having a “cavalier attitude to regulation”.

The Law Society yesterday rowed back from its support for would-be solicitors being able to qualify without degrees, putting it at odds with government backing for apprenticeships. Its chief executive said allowing it risked damaging the profession’s standing and even the global status of England and Wales as a jurisdiction.