Compliance & Regulation

The boss of a Manchester law firm has been fined £12,500 for failing to supervise his trainee properly in conveyancing transactions that “bore the hallmarks of property hijacks”.

An immigration solicitor who misappropriated £31,500 of his law firm’s fees by failing to record clients and then pocketing their fees has been struck off.

A solicitor who facilitated a “secret, snap sale of inheritance property” after which the seller absconded to Morocco with proceeds to which he was not entitled has been fined for missing multiple warning signs.

The Home Office is keeping watch on immigration practitioners to ensure they are regulated and not breaching their obligations, it has emerged.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority should investigate a personal injury firm involved in “layering” a claim with further costs, given evidence that this is a pattern of behaviour..

A solicitor who ran his law firm in a “shambolic fashion”, taking on more than 100 new cases when it should have been in the process of closing down, has been suspended for three months.

A solicitor described by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as having acted in a seriously inept manner has failed in his appeal against an £8,000 fine to the High Court.

A solicitor whose firm was badly hit by turbulence in the personal injury market – as well as a failed attempt to diversify into cavity wall litigation – used cash meant for disbursements to keep his firm afloat.

The use of online comparison websites for barristers is “utterly inappropriate”, the Bar Council has said, while describing the Legal Services Board’s work on NDAs “absurd”.

A solicitor struck off for making false and misleading statements on applications for professional indemnity insurance has failed in her appeal to the High Court.

The Bar Standards Board has said it is open to “revisiting” its position that a reaccreditation scheme to ensure the competence of barristers is unnecessary.

Details of many disciplinary and other regulatory actions taken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority will be published for longer than they are now, the regulator has decided.

A solicitor who was convicted of fraud after impersonating a friend to obtain prescriptions for painkillers and sleeping pills has agreed to leave the profession.

The board of the SRA has agreed the final version of the rules for its in-house successor to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund, which is due to begin work on 1 October this year.

There is an increasing trend of firms threatening to report their opponents to the Solicitors Regulation Authority as a litigation tactic, solicitors have told the regulator.