Compliance & Regulation

Practising fees for solicitors are to increase by 10%, or £10.4m, in the next year, with the practising certificate fee to rise £20, the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority have proposed.

Kathryn Stone is to add overseeing the conduct of barristers to her current role as MPs’ watchdog after she was appointed chair of the Bar Standards Board.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has said it believes “a new consumer protection arrangement within the SRA” was likely to be more cost-effective than retaining the Solicitors Indemnity Fund.

A senior City partner who told a client to “burn” a private messaging app after it was served with a search order has been found guilty of criminal contempt of court.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to go ahead with plans to reintroduce next April an annual application fee of up to £40 for non-practising solicitors who want to stay on the roll.

A High Court judge has rejected a potentially “career-ending” contempt application against a solicitor, describing it as “wholly frivolous” and totally without merit.

A solicitor “duped” into paying over £1.2m in sale proceeds to third parties in what turned out to be property frauds has failed in his appeal against being struck off.

Solicitors could be jailed or fined for failures in the way they verify entries on the register of overseas entities, which went live yesterday.

The Bar has improved its compliance with the rules on transparency and more consumers are shopping around for potential providers, Bar Standards Board research has found.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has refused to allow an immigration solicitor to be restored to the roll 21 years after he was struck off for accounts rule breaches.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has agreed to a request from the Solicitors Indemnity Fund to underwrite its potential liabilities in continuing to operate by providing a £6m undertaking.

The legal regulators have been given six months to deliver action plans to the Legal Services Board on how they are going to reform their regimes to ensure lawyers’ ongoing competence.

The Legal Services Board has, after “very extensive debate”, backed a cut in the time limit for complaining to the Legal Ombudsman from six years to only one year.

A fee-earner at Slater & Gordon who falsely claimed he had missed litigation deadlines because of scanning errors and not being in the office due to the pandemic has been banned from working in law firms.

A solicitor who told a trainee to draft an “incorrect and misleading” defence to an unpaid fees claim from a barrister – which ignored his firm’s liability for the money – has been fined £7,500.