Solicitors

The Legal Services Board has marked as “sufficient” action plans produced by legal regulators to introduce price transparency and release other information to the public to help with purchasing decisions. The verdict on the original action plans published at the end of June came in the wake of the regulators moving to the next stage of consulting on how they would implement transparency.

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected the case of a solicitor who said the Solicitors Regulation Authority deprived him of the chance to challenge the decision to close down his law firm. Yesterday’s ruling came nearly four years after the solicitor had lodged his case.

Three partners whose supervision failure led to a trusted paralegal stealing £400,000 from their firm’s clients have accepted rebukes and fines instead of being referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The paralegal took most of the money through a stamp duty land tax scam.

The Legal Services Board has been warned against trying to force the introduction of the civil standard of proof in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal without proper consultation. The Law Society said it was “inappropriate” for the board to use performance assessments of the regulators it oversees to require them to introduce a lower standard.

A law firm compliance officer who stole more than £500,000 from her law firm after being caught up in an online “romance scam” with what she thought was an American serviceman, has accepted a ban from working again in the solicitors’ profession.

A large north of England debt collection agency has launched an alternative business structure to bring work in-house after commercial clients demanded a “seamless cradle to grave service”. The aim is “to continue the service that we already supply but do it from our internal resources rather than through partnerships with law firms”.

The Law Society has hit out at the latest raft of reforms proposed yesterday by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and particularly the idea of granting ‘freelance’ solicitors the ability to deliver reserved legal services without being either a registered sole practitioner or part of a law firm.

Solicitors will be able to set up their own law firms as soon as they qualify – rather than have to wait three years as now – under the latest wave of changes to the SRA Handbook proposed by the regulator today. It also proposes to allow freelance solicitors to offer reserved legal activities and an 11-year period after the SQE comes into being to finish qualifying under the current regime.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is planning to extend its plans to force law firms to publish prices from conveyancing, private client and divorce work, to personal injury, employment and motoring offences, it revealed today.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal yesterday published its 214-page ruling in the Leigh Day case, meaning the Solicitors Regulation Authority now has to decide whether to appeal. The ruling also details for the first time the disagreement among the three tribunal panel members – an extremely rare occurrence.