Regulation

The Legal Services Board is set to make encouraging comparison sites to enter the legal market one of its goals for the next year, along with telling regulators to be clearer about how they spend the profession’s money.

Claimant and defendant personal injury interests have clashed over this week’s report of the government-commissioned Insurance Fraud Taskforce – while the Solicitors Regulation Authority has welcomed the call for its fining powers to be increased and the burden of proof before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal lowered.

The government should consider strengthening the fining powers of the Solicitors Regulation Authority and lowering the burden of proof in cases that reach the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as part of the reforms needed to combat insurance fraud, a major report has recommended.

There is a “real risk” that members of the public will view the Solicitors Regulation Authority as “simply preferring the word of solicitors”, its independent review body has concluded. The Independent Complaint Resolution Service called for a review of compensation claim fund claims.

A decision by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to grant retrospective anonymity to a solicitor who had only been found guilty of a technical rule breach flouted the principle of open justice, the High Court has ruled. The tribunal made a decision that was “wrong in principle and not one which it could rationally make”.

Almost half of asylum seekers are not satisfied with the service provided by their lawyers, a report for the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman has found. It exposed how some firms paid interpreters to recruit asylum seeker clients at ports and detention centres.

A “tranche” of top commercial lawyers “has effectively become privately regulated by the clients they seek to serve”, a leading academic has said. Dr Steven Vaughan said some were “happy to be captured” by clients.

A City law firm partner has been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority after an assault conviction for a “domestic incident”. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order, but retains the support of his firm.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a study of the legal services sector for consumers and small businesses so as to examine “long-standing concerns” about affordability and standards of service. The CMA said concerns had also been raised about the “complexity of the current regulatory framework”.

A former partner in a criminal law firm has described how he deliberately broke professional rules to get a murderer convicted. Steve Chittenden said: “The dilemma is between the rules and natural justice.”