Solicitors

A Court of Appeal ruling this week that exonerated claimant personal injury solicitors of gaming the system for low-value road traffic accident claims is also evidence that the Solicitors Regulation Authority needs to take more care when dealing with complaints by parties to litigation, it was argued yesterday.

A solicitor who “failed to distinguish between the personal and professional” when doing business with a family he knew, meaning that he overlooked signs of possible money laundering, has been sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said his own description of his work as sloppy was “an understatement”.

A solicitor has been suspended indefinitely after breaching conduct rules by preferring his bank as a creditor over Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, leaving the Exchequer hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket as a result. John Barrie Wilson had already been also disqualified as a director because of the shortfall.

The High Court has overturned a decision by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to clear a solicitor who borrowed money from the controversial Axiom Legal Financing Fund of charges of misconduct – five months after another ruling involving two solicitors who took an Axiom loan was also reversed.

The Crown Prosecution Service has taken over prosecution of a major legal aid fraud by a law firm after the Court of Appeal criticised the Legal Aid Agency for trying to run the case through the fraud department of a local authority instead. It expressed surprise that both the agency and Thurrock council had tried this course of action.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor for practising while bankrupt and dishonestly misleading the police that he worked for a firm when attending clients at police stations. He was also found to have breached conduct rules by failing to repay £8,250 he borrowed from a “vulnerable” elderly man he represented.

The training reforms unveiled last week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority are “not a panacea for diversity” though they could make a “significant contribution”, a report for the regulator has concluded. The report also warned that the arrival of the solicitors qualifying examination in 2020 would make the training market “more complex to navigate”.

The Bar Standards Board has opened the way to replace the criminal standard of proof in disciplinary matters with the civil standard, in a move that could well ripple across the profession amid growing pressure to adopt the civil standard uniformly.

A prisoner has been awarded damages after officers at three different prisons where he was held opened legally privileged letters addressed to him. Sitting in the High Court, His Honour Judge McKenna said the fear of having his mail opened and read had deterred the inmate from pursuing his rights.

The solicitors qualifying examination (SQE) is likely to be of similar difficulty to the test American lawyers have to pass to qualify, but may actually seem harder to those taking it, according to the body that develops licensing tests for bar admission in the US.