Regulation

A solicitor who failed to report that a fee-earner he employed had been convicted of an immigration offence has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A freelance solicitor has teamed up with a former KPMG partner to launch a divorce business that guarantees its fixed-fee quote for the whole process, including ancillary relief.

Two directors of an alternative business structure have been fined for not supervising a branch office where a fellow director and a bogus solicitor carried out a £3.3m property fraud.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published details of fines levied against six law firms for failing to confirm in time that they had a compliant anti-money laundering firm-wide risk assessment.

A barrister has spoken about her “really positive” recent experiences of courts accommodating “the practicalities and balancing acts being carried out by those with children”.

A solicitor who charged a client’s estate fees of over £9,000 during a period of “complete inactivity” has been struck off. He was both its executor and residuary beneficiary.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has announced a review of its professional indemnity insurance arrangements in light of a hardening market for cover.

Issues such as provocation, spontaneity and whether an incident was a ‘one-off’ should not be factors that reduce sanctions for sexual misconduct by barristers, the Bar Council has urged.

A solicitor who held nearly 1,500 historical client balances and whose failure to remedy accounts rule breaches was described as a “complete dereliction of duty”, has been suspended for two years.

The Legal Services Board has commended the “impressive progress” made by the Costs Lawyer Standards Board – the smallest of the legal regulators – in meeting its performance framework.