Compliance & Regulation

The government needs to “end the cancer” of high-end law firms selling “intimidation services” to oligarchs and others trying to use the legal system to silence journalists and critics, MPs heard yesterday.

A lawyer has been jailed for 13 months after showing a “brazen disregard” for his regulator by failing to hand over his firm’s files to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Two partners in a former City law firm have each been fined £7,500 for allowing a non-lawyer to have sole and unsupervised conduct of multi-jurisdictional group litigation involving 1,500 clients.

Multiple international bodies are seeking to undermine both legal professional privilege and the independent regulation of the profession, a global lawyers group has warned.

A solicitor who attempted to sell an elderly client’s house to her own civil partner at an undervalue, and was the sole beneficiary of the client’s will that she drafted, has been struck off.

The Information Commissioner has threatened to fine the Ministry of Justice if it fails to deal with thousands of outstanding subject access requests.

A non-practising barrister has been disbarred for dishonesty, after falsely persuading a client he would bring judicial review proceedings.

The solicitor at the centre of a collapsed dishonesty prosecution in 2019 has been struck off for dishonesty after a second prosecution for new offences, including practising without insurance.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has mooted requiring law firms to purchase standalone cyber-insurance as “evolving forms of cyber-risk” become more complex.

A heavyweight City solicitor and leading Welsh in-house lawyer have been named as new members of what is now the smallest-ever board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

An ex-solicitor who accused the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal of Islamophobia for not having Muslim panel members when striking him off in 2019 has failed in his application to be restored to the roll.

An alternative business structure specialising in commercial litigation and arbitration and led by barristers has opted for regulation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A high-profile solicitor has been jailed for contempt of court after defying two court orders to hand over her practice’s files to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A solicitor at Capsticks, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s external lawyers, has been struck off for lying to a client and the firm about progress on a file.

A former in-house solicitor at NatWest has been struck off for child pornography convictions after he was found by police with 15,000 indecent images and videos.