Regulation

The Bar Standards Board has reported that its annual income is expected to plummet by almost a quarter (24%) by the end of this financial year, with the smaller than expected number of firms or ‘entities’ that had sought its oversight contributing significantly to the shortfall.

Practising solicitors should be allowed to deliver advice to the public from unregulated firms, subject to restrictions, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has suggested as part of a phased review of how it regulates both individuals and organisations.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has fined three former partners who sent each other emails containing offensive comments about colleagues over several months. It said the emails contained “derogatory and hurtful comments about individuals, including some colleagues, which were based on gender, sexual orientation and/or race”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has taken the unusual step of restoring a solicitor’s practising certificate after discovering he was not a partner in a law firm that was the subject of an intervention.

A barrister who admitted that he had talked to jurors at Basildon Railway Station after a trial has been reprimanded and fined £300 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal. Mohammed Omar Faruk said the incident was unintentional.

Abolishing the status of QC should now be seriously considered in the light of research that shows male Oxbridge-educated junior barristers from London-based chambers are still far more likely to take silk, according to a new study by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

A former partner at Blake Lapthorn has agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority that he will apply for his name to be removed from the roll after admitting five improper withdrawals of client money totalling almost £222,000. He used client money, without consent, for the benefit of another client – known as ‘teeming and lading’.

The Bar Standards Board has accepted in principle all the recommendations of a hard-hitting report which found “highly variable” standards of advocacy in the youth courts. Only 52% of advocates thought they had sufficient knowledge of the youth justice system to do their job properly.

Real separation of representative and regulatory functions at organisations like the Law Society and Bar Council is “unfinished business” of the Legal Services Act, according to the woman who led the society’s negotiations with the government in the run-up to the Act.

A probate manager who admitting making 140 “improper withdrawals” over a period of 11 years, resulting in a client account shortage of £730,000, has been banned from working for law firms. Though he acted recklessly, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal did not find him dishonest.