Other lawyers

A volume conveyancing firm has apologised after sending out letters to clients asking for an additional £200 fee to “prioritise” their files in the run-up to Christmas. Meanwhile, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers is to launch a ‘secure badge’ to help the firms it regulates combat their websites being cloned.

A notarial firm based in Norwich has become the first to be regulated as an alternative business structure by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The move was triggered by the decision to appoint its first non-notary employees earlier this year.

The Ministry of Justice has no intention of dropping its plans to separate the legal regulators from their representative bodies, it said yesterday as it unveiled reviews of how the Legal Services Board and Legal Ombudsman are operating.

The failure to give Scottish notaries public the right to practise in England and Wales is having a “significant impact on clients in terms of cost and inconvenience”, the Law Society of Scotland has claimed. While intra-UK practice rights for solicitors have been in place since 1990, there are no corresponding provisions concerning notaries public.

A woman who obtained a grant of letters of administration and then used a firm of licensed conveyancers to defend herself against a claim from other potential beneficiaries, has been told by the High Court that she has to pay back to the estate nearly £87,000 given to the firm that has been lost.

“Many of my solicitor friends are insanely jealous” that the new arrangements for licensed conveyancers’ professional indemnity insurance include free run-off cover, one practitioner said in a survey that showed widespread satisfaction with the regime.

Research into the growing trend of law firms switching regulator has begun so as to assess any risks for consumers and whether there may be unintended consequences. The Legal Services Board is undertaking the work and will look, among other things, at the extent to which new regulators check and use a lawyer or firm’s previous regulatory history.

A barrister who was convicted last year of practising as an immigration adviser while his registration was suspended, has now been suspended from the Bar as well. Meanwhile, four unqualified immigration advisers have been convicted of offering services without being registered by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner.

Accountants are set to go head to head with lawyers for tax work after the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales yesterday formally applied for the right to allow members to conduct reserved legal activities. The institute said the move would be in the interests of consumers.

The Law Society and Council for Licensed Conveyancers have clashed plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to make it easier for law firms to switch regulator. The society warned that clients could be left without proper cover.

People are avoiding regulation as immigration advisers by “purportedly acting as McKenzie Friends”, the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner has warned. It said they were “effectively frustrating the will of Parliament”.

The Council of Licensed Conveyancers has announced its intention to apply to the Legal Services Board to approve the introduction of a solicitor-style open market indemnity scheme. The move has triggered warnings that law firms may switch regulator from the Solicitors Regulation Authority to the CLC for the wrong reasons.

There should be a two-tier system of legal regulation that distinguishes between those branches of the profession that hold client money and those that do not, the chairman of the Costs Lawyer Standards Board has argued.

The chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has responded to strongly-worded criticisms this week from the Legal Services Board by the describing its report as “the best ever” received from the oversight regulator. However, Mr Philip admitted that there were parts of the report and performance review where the SRA had a “different opinion”.

The lack of independence between the legal regulators and representative bodies risks undermining the credibility of regulation and allows the likes of the Law Society and Bar Council to delay reforms that would benefit competition, the Legal Services Board said yesterday.