Compliance & Regulation

It is “highly over-optimistic” to think the Legal Services Act will be reformed or replaced by the government in the next couple of years, the chief executive of the Legal Services Board has warned.

The High Court has rejected an appeal from a struck-off solicitor whose application to be restored to the roll was refused by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal earlier this year.

A law firm owner and his practice manager have both been fined for mismanaging legal aid funds, although a tribunal found they were “honourably motivated”.

Solicitors have been accused of visiting vulnerable patients in hospital wards in Leeds and “coercing” them into signing legal documents.

SRA plans to double the upper limit on fines for law firms to 5% of turnover and to £805,000 for individuals are “excessive and unjustified”, the Law Society has argued.

Complaints to a lawyer’s employer and professional regulator can amount to acts of stalking, the Court of Appeal has ruled in a case where a senior government lawyer was targeted.

A very experienced solicitor who showed a “complete blind spot” with regard to his obligations to ‘know your client’ and recognise the risks of conveyancing fraud has been suspended for a year.

A criminal solicitor who helped out a friend in a family law dispute pro bono has been fined £40,000 for how he conducted the case, which “detrimentally impacted” all those involved.

Listed practice DWF has bought a law firm in Vancouver, Canada for £28m, a deal only allowed by its local law society with conditions that ensure local lawyers retain control.

Law firms appear to be warding off cyber-attacks more successfully, with client losses falling to £700,000 in the first 10 months of this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed.

A paralegal who used case files he had not worked on as part of his application to be an accredited police station representative has been banned, among the latest sanctions handed out by the SRA.

A small number of law firms are being investigated for either actively or negligently breaching sanctions imposed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it emerged yesterday.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is braced for solicitors looking to borrow from client account to help pay their bills in the face of a worsening economy, its chief executive said yesterday.

The Legal Services Board has promised the frontline legal regulators “greater autonomy” in its the framework it will use to assess regulators’ progress.

Lawyer are not merely “servants of their clients” and should counsel their clients about environmental harms their instructions may lead to, a leading legal academic has argued.