Solicitors

There has been a significant increase in the number of complaints about the conduct of barristers outside of practice, it has emerged, as the implications of the Beckwith ruling continue to reverberate.

Six non-lawyers have been banned from working for law firms for a range of offences, from faking signatures and misusing season ticket loans to fabricating a client’s will to name themselves as a beneficiary.

The High Court has refused to strike out claims of harassment brought by a solicitor and his wife over surveillance of them carried out at the instruction of a former client.

Two criminal law solicitors who billed the victim of an attack by a psychiatric patient a total of £20,000 for what they described as “administrative services” have been fined by a tribunal.

The High Court has overturned the decision that former Freshfields partner Ryan Beckwith breached the SRA code of conduct by having drunken sex with a junior lawyer at the firm.

The Republic of Ireland’s single regulator for the legal profession has decided that it would be “premature” to abolish the distinction between solicitors and barristers.

There is a difference between many law firms’ anti-money laundering policies and procedures, and what actually happens in practice, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found.

Two partners who saw more than £100m pass through their firm’s client account for a car parking and storage pod investment scheme have been fined for misconduct.

Dubious investment schemes involving solicitors are becoming “far more sophisticated” and leading to a “huge number of claims” on the Compensation Fund, the SRA has warned.

The quality of one of the two main kinds of anti-money laundering reports made by solicitors has got significantly worse, a senior manager at the National Crime Agency said yesterday.