Solicitors

An experienced private client lawyer who forged a grant of probate has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He was acting for the estate of a woman who had lacked mental capacity and had two disabled sons living in care.

It is “beyond argument” that a solicitor sentenced to any substantial term of imprisonment should be struck off, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division said yesterday as the High Court increased an indefinite suspension imposed on a former senior Crown prosecutor convicted of the attempted murder of his wife to a strike-off.

If the Legal Services Board is serious about promoting access to justice it must end its silence on the legal aid cuts, lawyers’ organisations have said. The Bar Council accused the oversight regulator of acting like “another department of government” by refusing to comment.

A partner in a South Yorkshire law firm who failed to disclose on the financial statement for his own divorce proceedings ownership of a second property has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He falsely stated that the proceeds of sale of the building had been invested in a failed property venture.

A solicitor convicted of contacting her imprisoned client by mobile phone – sending him 102 text messages in less than three months – has been suspended from practice. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that she was under intense competitive pressure after setting up her own firm and had come to use texting as a convenient way to contact clients.

A solicitor has been “severely reprimanded” by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after he compounded an error made by his firm 15 years previously when it failed to follow instructions over a property transfer. It is not a sanction that is seen any more but the SRA said it was available when the events took place a decade ago.

Legal regulators have urged the Legal Services Board to use its review of the internal governance rules to give them greater independence from their representative bodies. The Solicitors Regulation Authority said the rewrite of the rules should allow it to become a “separate legal entity” from the Law Society.

The principal solicitor of controversial Bolton personal injury firm Asons is to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over multiple allegations, including the payment of illegal referral fees and false costs claims, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed.

A partner at a City law firm who said a client had signed documents in his presence when she was actually abroad has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said the solicitor had been “pushed into a corner”, taking over a conveyancing matter where completion was fixed and there was “pressure to meet the date”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority received nearly 300 reports of personal injury (PI) law firms either paying illegal referral fees or being involved in cold-calling, it has revealed. This is in the context of there being only 768 ‘specialist’ law firms, which the Solicitors Regulation Authority defines as generating at least half their turnover from PI work.