Regulation
Appeal judges limit professional privilege where lives are at risk
Legal professional privilege can be qualified in the “rare circumstances” where it is necessary to impose a requirement that other people are present at discussions between lawyers and clients, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Former City “rising star” given suspended sentence by SDT after drink-driving conviction
A former partner at a top City law firm with a history of drink-driving has been given a suspended sentence by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), following a conviction for drink-driving with his five-year-old son in the car.
GT Law “strongly denies any wrongdoing” over Sonae litigation
GT Law, one of the two firms referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) by Mr Justice Jay over the Sonae litigation, has said that it “strongly denies any wrongdoing”. The SRA is considering “appropriate action”.
Solicitor ducks regulatory burden by becoming McKenzie Friend
A solicitor who has become a professional McKenzie Friend after 20 years in practice has hit out at the burden imposed on high street practitioners, which he said cost him almost £2m and pushed him into personal bankruptcy.
SRA warns criminal lawyers of wider review as row over legal aid boycott deepens
Paul Philip, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), has warned criminal lawyers that they may be the subject of a “thematic review”, as the row between practitioners and their regulator over the legal aid boycott deepened.
Police called in stand-off over ownership of law firm
A High Court judge has described how locks were changed and the police were called in an extraordinary stand-off over the ownership of a law firm. The case also raised questions about the extent of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s intervention powers.
Slow off the blocks? BSB regulates fewer firms than expected as ABS launch date slips further
The Bar Standards Board (BSB), which predicted at one point last year that it would authorise 400 firms in 2015, has authorised only 32 in its first four months as an entity regulator, it has emerged. Meanwhile it may not be regulating alternative business structures until later next year.
Rules forcing local authorities to set up ABSs “risk privatisation of public sector legal services”
Local authority legal departments are being forced to set up alternative business structures by restrictive rules on in-house lawyers, leading to the “privatisation” of public sector legal services, the director of Essex Legal Services has claimed.
Reform of in-house lawyer regulation could improve consumer access to justice, says LSB
The removal of regulatory restrictions on in-house lawyers could provide greater access to justice for consumers, the Legal Services Board has said. It also warned the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board that the reviews of the rules for in-house lawyers they are starting “will need to be far reaching”.
Public interest duty makes corporate lawyers “more than mere service providers”
The lack of guidance on the phrase ‘public interest’ in the context of legal regulation potentially makes it meaningless and wastes an opportunity to remind corporate lawyers they are not “mere service providers”, according to an academic.
Blog
The cost of systemic failure and childbirth injuries
Recent reports show that the NHS has paid almost £3.5bn in medical claims around childbirth injuries over the past six years.
Mazur: when regulators make simple things complicated
What the last six months have shown is that supervision cannot be treated as a background compliance obligation quietly managed somewhere in a firm’s operational processes.
How unstoppable AI is reshaping UK legal practice
At a time when most technology innovation still flows from the US and China, UK lawtech is attracting growing international attention and capital.
