Solicitors

A Herefordshire law firm has welcomed a two-year jail sentence imposed on a former partner who tried to cover up her theft of £50,000 from probate matters by placing fake letters and copy cheques on their files, and making false entries in client ledgers.

Paralegal Shaun Lawler has said he hopes to be the first solicitor admitted to the profession through the ‘equivalent means’ route rather a traditional training contract.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is investigating two law firms which it said should have closed at the end of last year, having failed to find indemnity insurance.

Many lawyers, particularly solicitors and barristers, complain about their practising certificate (PC) fees, but there are high levels of ignorance about what they are paying for, a major cost of regulation survey has found.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has delayed the introduction of the second phase of its reforms of the rules on submitting accountants’ reports from next month to November this year.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority adopted a new way to judge lawyers’ competence yesterday, which will for the first time mean it does not need to rely entirely on expert opinion or case law.

Almost three months after the Solicitors Regulation Authority opened up its database to comparison websites, only one is actually receiving any information, it has emerged. Meanwhile the Bar Standards Board has opened its Barristers’ Register to the public.

The number of lawyers demanding an independent review of their treatment at the hands of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has gone up, despite a decline in members of the public making a similar request.

The Law Society’s outgoing Freedom of Information adjudicator has told the Solicitors Regulation Authority that it does not consider the public interest sufficiently in too readily refusing to release details of its investigations.

The Law Society has spoken out against government plans to impose on the Solicitors Regulation Authority a duty to promote economic growth, which it said threatened the independence of the profession.