Compliance & Regulation

A solicitor whose misconduct has led to the SRA Compensation Fund paying out nearly £600,000 to his former conveyancing clients has been struck off.

A solicitor who “dumped” hundreds of hours of unjustified time on a largely completed file in a bid to meet his billing targets has been suspended for nine months.

An experienced solicitor who told a prospective employer that she was still in work, when in fact her former firm had sacked her several months earlier, has been struck off.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched its latest effort to expand its fining powers, this time looking to increase the current £2,000 maximum to £25,000.

Law firm closures and interventions have fallen during the pandemic, but it has had negative effects too, such as abuse of government funding schemes, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed.

A solicitor who hit a person around the head with a frying pan, and another who tried to use a settlement agreement to prevent disclosures to HMRC, have been rebuked.

A lawyer who failed to comply with court orders to hand over his firm’s files to the Solicitors Regulation Authority is facing possible jail time after being found in contempt.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers is pressing the Simplify group to reach a position where it can provide its files to clients who wish to change lawyer following the recent cyber-attack.

The evidence for abolishing the Bar course aptitude test is “compelling” as it has failed to achieve its purpose, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said.

A barrister found to have brought a fundamentally dishonest personal injury claim was not disbarred after a tribunal did not accept that his case was actually fraudulent.

A solicitor who plundered her client account to meet her personal financial obligations and her ex-partner’s car debts has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The country’s largest conveyancing group has been told by its regulator to improve communication with clients in the wake of a paralysing cyber-attack this week.

There are “differing levels of achievement and some significant weaknesses” among the UK’s legal regulators in their approach to anti-money laundering, their oversight body has reported.

The Legal Services Board has said other legal regulators could learn lessons from a highly critical review it has published on the Faculty Office, the regulator of notaries.

It is not the job of the Solicitors Regulation Authority to help retired solicitors “sleep easy” by protecting them from historic negligence claims, its director of regulatory policy has warned.