Solicitors

Law firms will have to publish their prices for a range of consumer and business services, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided, but they will not have to put their complaints records in the public domain. It comes alongside research showing consumers particularly wanted information on price and quality before choosing a lawyer.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has tempered its proposal to allow solicitors to set up their own law firms as soon as they qualify, as it unveiled the final wave of changes to its Handbook. This completes the two-year process of rewriting the handbook, which is set to be around 130 pages in total, more than 300 pages less than now.

The practising certificate fee for solicitors is set to be frozen this year, but contributions to bolster the Solicitors Compensation Fund are to more than double ahead of an expected rise in claims arising from their involvement in fraudulent investment schemes. The Law Society issued a consultation yesterday that laid out a proposed budget of £134.2m.

A dishonest solicitor who forged documents and stole clients’ mortgage payments after taking the reins of a law firm has been jailed for seven years and six months. Andrew John Davies, 34, was jailed at Bolton Crown Court having pleaded guilty to 42 charges including fraud, forgery and money laundering at an earlier hearing.

A solicitor who made offensive remarks in a private Facebook group has been rebuked and fined, while other unusual disciplinary decisions announced yesterday included a suspension for a barrister who got her clerk to lie about her availability for a hearing.

A law firm that topped the table for holiday sickness claims is among 27 claimant firms being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, it has emerged. A leading defendant solicitor said he was surprised to see the firm heading the list, because it was “not one we had pretty much ever heard of”.

A criminal defence solicitor has been struck off for dishonestly claiming £7,000 from the legal aid fund and falsifying documents to cover up his mistakes in double-booking advocates – at a time when he said he was suffering from severe depression which led him to drink and take un-prescribed drugs.

An office manager jailed last year for stealing £413,000 from a Newcastle law firm can only pay back £58,000 to its partners, it emerged in court yesterday. Meanwhile, the Crown Court has appointed a receiver to recover a ‘tainted gift’ received by the wife of a jailed solicitor who plundered £1.8m from the estates of dead clients.

The Legal Services Board has handed out a public censure for the first time, after finding that the Law Society had governance arrangements in place that could have interfered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Law Society’s actions undermined “the public interest in effective regulation of legal services”.

A sole practitioner who claimed more than twice the criminal costs he was entitled to after successfully defending a client has been fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. He said he had “very little experience of criminal defence work”.