Solicitors

State-school education solicitors are far more likely to operate in criminal law than corporate, new figures published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority have shown. It also said that one-third of partners were women, although it was 29% for firms of 50 or more partners – both figures showing progress in recent years.

The High Court has ordered the Solicitors Regulation Authority to make a fresh judgment of a would-be solicitor’s character and suitability to join the profession after finding that it had wrongly denied her an oral hearing to explain an issue that it decided showed dishonesty.

The next chief executive of the Law Society could earn £300,000 after the job was finally advertised – more than a year since the last one quit. The post comes with a salary of up to £230,000, a bonus of up to 30% and a defined contribution pension scheme.

Trust corporations wanting to act as property and affairs deputies for incapacitated people must be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to gain immediate approval, the Court of Protection has said.

A solicitor convicted of sexual assault did not fail to uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled in a decision that will have implications for future prosecutions of those with criminal convictions.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to appeal to the High Court over the sanction imposed by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in a ground-breaking ruling last month on mental health and dishonesty, Legal Futures can reveal. The case involved fabricating and backdating documents, which is becoming increasingly common misconduct.

The government yesterday rejected criticism that its proposed ban on cold-calling did not go far enough and voted it into the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill. A minister said it was “convinced that the new clause will have the effect of making unwanted calls from claims management services unlawful”.

Claimant solicitors and defendants have come together to attack the government’s proposed ban on cold-calling, with the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers describing it as a “broken promise”. ABTA joined the criticism as it emerged that the addition of holiday sickness claims to the fixed recoverable costs scheme is scheduled to come into force in April.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has again decided against striking off a solicitor for proven dishonesty after it accepted that he was suffering from work-induced stress. The solicitor said one of his supervisors had described himself as being “like an abusive husband, always asking for forgiveness and saying it would be different”.

A solicitor has been struck off for conducting reserved activities when he was not entitled to do so and dishonestly misleading the regulator when challenged on it. After closing down his regulated firm, he set up an unregulated one but was found to have conducted both conveyancing and litigation.