Solicitors

A personal injury lawyer who faced “what could almost be described as a perfect storm” of legal aid cuts and a doubling of his rent has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The SDT said that rather than approaching his bank, the solicitor took a decision to “plunder client account”.

Friday’s Competition and Markets Authority report on legal services has reignited the debate over independent regulation, with both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board welcoming the call for separation from their representative bodies.

An academic audit of a law firm’s business has broken down its offering into more than 300 ‘products’ as part of a radical and so far successful attempt to increase profits. It was carried out under a government-backed knowledge transfer partnership with Oxford Brookes University’s business school.

A sole practitioner who “simply buried his head in the sand” over his failure to secure indemnity insurance and carry out an orderly wind-down of his firm has been reprimanded by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has banned a paralegal at an alternative business structure and a trainee solicitor at former Hull firm Ward Legal from working for law firms. The SRA said the paralegal sent e-mails to his partner at another law firm making comments that “failed to encourage equality of opportunity and respect for diversity”.

A solicitor whose CV was full of professional and academic qualifications he did not have has agreed to remove himself from the profession in a move akin to being struck off. He used the CV when he became a consultant in the London office of Canadian firm McCarthy Tetrault.

Three solicitors at a Hertfordshire-based law firm who acted as professional executors are not liable for breach of trust after beneficiaries claimed they had lost almost £1.5m on investments, the High Court has ruled.

A solicitor who took money from vulnerable people for whom she was the court-appointed deputy – and even kept some of it in cash in her wardrobe – has been struck off after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that her conduct was more than just a “cry for help”.

The partners of a 41-year-old Black Country law firm have expressed their “bitter” disappointment at having to close down due to a dispute with their professional indemnity insurers. At the same time, four lawyers from Sanders & Co are facing the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over their involvement in a complex overseas investment scheme.

A solicitor who failed in his attempt to challenge the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s closure of his alternative business structure is now to face a disciplinary tribunal, it has emerged. Michael John Elsdon is facing 15 charges, largely in relation to his conduct of probate matters.