Solicitors

Setting up a new panel of criminal defence advocates could confuse the public, CILEx Regulation has warned. It said the legal regulators should control standards and quality.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to launch a research project on the “competence” of personal injury lawyers, it has emerged. The research will examine the “decisions and processes implemented by firms to respond to legislative and market changes”.

Two personal injury solicitors have been sanctioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for breaches of the referral fee ban. One was rebuked and fined £2,000 – the most the regulator could levy without a referral to a disciplinary tribunal – while the other was simply rebuked.

The leaders of the Solicitors Regulation Authority have made it clear that they believe it would be better for the public and the profession if they had complete independence from the Law Society. They were responding to the Treasury’s announcement earlier this week on independent regulation.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has fined or reprimanded the directors of a law firm for using legal aid disbursement payments to keep the practice afloat, after the economic recession and a merger put it under financial pressure. But it emerged during the hearing at the end of September that if payments owing to the firm had been made promptly, it would have been well within its bank overdraft.

The government should return regulation to the legal profession’s representative bodies, rather than introduce full separation, the Law Society has said in response to yesterday’s surprise announcement from the Treasury that separation is now on the cards. The move is set to open up the fault lines in the current regulatory set-up created by the 2007 Legal Services Act.

The Legal Services Board has joined solicitors in questioning government plans to introduce additional regulation of criminal advocacy. The Bar Council supported the proposals by the Ministry of Justice.

Practising solicitors should be allowed to deliver advice to the public from unregulated firms, subject to restrictions, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has suggested as part of a phased review of how it regulates both individuals and organisations.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has fined three former partners who sent each other emails containing offensive comments about colleagues over several months. It said the emails contained “derogatory and hurtful comments about individuals, including some colleagues, which were based on gender, sexual orientation and/or race”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has taken the unusual step of restoring a solicitor’s practising certificate after discovering he was not a partner in a law firm that was the subject of an intervention.