Solicitors

The head of a council’s child protection legal team has successfully removed all the conditions on his practising certificate imposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the wake of a finding against him by a disciplinary tribunal.

Leading legal aid law firm Duncan Lewis has been sanctioned for breaching the rule that prohibits paying referral fees for legally aided clients. The rebuke and £2,000 fine is the most that the Solicitors Regulation Authority can do without referring the firm to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Law firms must comply with data requests even if the purpose for seeking the documents is assisting in litigation, the Court of Appeal has ruled. Overturning the High Court, Lady Justice Arden held that a data request was not invalid if made for the “collateral purpose of assisting in litigation”.

The solicitor convicted of transferring criminal property after being taken in by a charismatic conman posing as the Pope’s banker was naïve but not dishonest, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has said in explaining why it considered a £2,000 fine sufficient penalty for her misconduct.

The Legal Services Board has stepped up the pressure on the Law Society’s role as the approved regulator of solicitors by announcing a formal investigation into whether the Solicitors Regulation Authority has sufficient independence.

A former chief executive of Cheshire-based solicitors Forster Dean, who is now a leading football administrator in Northern Ireland, has been suspended by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over accounts rule breaches.

Disciplinary cases involving solicitors are now akin to High Court trials and there needs to be a major overhaul that would make the Solicitors Regulation Authority responsible for handing out all sanctions, including strike-offs, a former prosecutor has said.

Claimant law firm Asons has agreed to repay more than £100,000 to AXA after admitting to falsely and systematically inflating its legal costs, the insurer said today. The dispute involved 65 personal injury cases where “Asons overstated the qualifications and experience of its legal staff to falsely inflate [its] bills”.

The solicitor who safeguarded more than £100,000 of stolen cash for a charismatic conman posing as the Pope’s banker has been fined £2,000 following her conviction for transferring criminal property. The Crown Court judge had said she was “used” by fraudster Luis Nobre.

Three partners of a law firm that was tricked by fraudsters into paying the proceeds of a property sale into the wrong bank account – and did not carry out sufficient checks before doing so – have accepted rebukes from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.