Regulation

A solicitor has launched a second law firm regulated by the Bar Standards Board – this time an alternative business structure with a letting agent client.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has taken the unusual step of making a costs order against the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the “grave errors” it made in a case it eventually had to withdraw.

A personal injury lawyer who inflated costs, put false information before a court, misled her insurer and “wrecked lives” has been struck off.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales is considering a new push to regulate reserved legal activities, three years after its last attempt was knocked back.

Solicitors and accountants are at odds over whether the new economic crime levy should be calculated by reference to their income or the number of suspicious activity reports they made.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is applying for charitable status as part of becoming a distinct legal entity within the Law Society Group, it has emerged.

A barrister convicted of grievous bodily harm after breaking a hotel receptionist’s jaw with a hockey stick while drunk has been suspended by a tribunal – having qualified as a solicitor in the meantime.

The rules on price transparency are dispelling consumers’ pre-conceptions that legal services are unaffordable and many are now shopping around online, new research has claimed.

Solicitors are to be balloted on changes to the make-up of Law Society council and limits on how long members can sit on it, at a cost of about £30,000, following a divided AGM yesterday.

It was “fundamentally wrong” for Legal Services Board rules to force the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants to withdraw from legal services, another accountancy body has argued.