Compliance & Regulation

Two solicitors who paid their wives to clean a vault under the terms of a trust they oversaw preferred their interests over those of the trust and its beneficiary, the SDT has found.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority last week intervened in a group consisting of eight law firms after the primary business went into administration, as well as another group with four firms.

A group of eight major law firms have pledged to “understand the impact” of their advice on climate change and raised the possibility of not acting in matters that increase global warming.

Nation states and hacktivists are cyber threats to law firms in addition to criminals, the government’s National Cyber Security Centre as warned.

Bias among those who make complaints and the types of firms BAME solicitors work for might explain why they are overrepresented in disciplinary activity, researchers have suggested.

A solicitor who misled his client about the progress of her employment claim and then sent the Solicitors Regulation Authority fabricated documents to back up his position has been struck off.

A solicitor who complained to his bank about a missing transfer of £189,000 has been struck off because the money was never there and he faked various documents to back up his case.

A barrister with a spinal cord injury has described how a set of chambers, despite being told in advance that he was disabled, offered to carry him up the stairs to a pupillage interview.

A solicitor has had a rare success in successfully appealing a rebuke issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which had found him vicariously responsible for errors by his bookkeepers.

Around 60% of non-practising solicitors have paid £20 to remain on the roll for the next year after the first exercise to update it since 2014.

Law firms may be compelled to point potential clients to Legal Ombudsman decisions about them to help make it easier for consumers to choose a lawyer.

A solicitor who continued to practise after being made bankrupt and a fee-earner who failed to return disallowed costs to Court of Protection clients have been rebuked.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority wants to “harness the potential of unbundling to broaden access to legal services and increase consumer choice”, it said yesterday.

It is time to look “very carefully” at whether those who “regarded themselves as victims” should be able to bring private prosecutions in the wake of the Post Office scandal.

Most unregulated legal services firms support “some aspects of regulation” for their areas but there is not a clear case for major reform, a report for the SRA has concluded.