Solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority yesterday launched a massive public opinion poll to help it determine the correct baseline of solicitors’ behaviour on which it should base its regulatory decisions.

The High Court has overturned fines imposed on two solicitors for their involvement in stamp duty land tax avoidance schemes, saying that their conduct deserved more severe punishment. It said the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal had “seriously underestimated the gravity of its own findings”.

A solicitor who forged his client’s signature on a witness statement has been struck off, even though the client himself expressed surprise that disciplinary action had been taken. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said “it was regrettable that a long and previously unblemished career should end in this way”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has issued a strong denial that it has already made up its mind over how it will assess the competence of would-be solicitors, after the Law Society suggested that it had.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has thrown out forgery charges against a non-qualified fee-earner, deciding he had no case to answer and that the Solicitors Regulation Authority should pay costs of £5,000 as a reminder to it to keep cases under review as they progressed.

City solicitors have outlined their deep scepticism about plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to reform professional indemnity insurance rules, warning that “the solicitor brand should not be placed at risk” without very good reason.

Regulation accounts for between 15% and 23% of the costs of law firms, money they would generally not bother spending if they were not required to, an indicative study by the Legal Services Board has found. However, the opposite was the case for lawyers practising as individuals.

The High Court has rejected a Solicitors Regulation Authority bid to increase the sanction for a solicitor who committed perjury to avoid a speeding fine from a suspension to a striking-off. Mr Justice Dove found that it could not be said the two-year suspension was “clearly inappropriate”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s plans to relax the rules around accountants’ reports have been formally approved by the Legal Services Board, meaning that around 1,000 more law firms will not have to submit one in future

The High Court has referred an immigration practice to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority after reviewing five “hopeless” judicial reviews, each of which had already been deemed to be an abuse of process.