Compliance & Regulation

The Bar Standards Board has told striking barristers that it will focus in particular on any harm caused, following the Lord Chief Justice’s warning that their actions may amount to misconduct

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set to make it easier for law firm staff to blow the whistle on their employers, as part of its work on SLAPPs – of which it is investigating more than 20.

The whole profession needs to address “out of control” legal costs, a major new report has concluded, but costs lawyers have a significant role to play in exerting downward pressure on them.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has reported £161m worth of suspect transactions involving the profession to the National Crime Agency, with failures to check the source of funds the main trigger.

The founders of a specialist family law firm have spurned potential acquirors to transfer it instead into an employee ownership trust, saying the move sends a positive signal to would-be staff.

A solicitor who let one mistake on a property sale snowball so that it affected multiple transactions in a portfolio has been fined £10,000 – even though he preferred to be struck off.

A solicitor who used a disabled badge that did not belong to him nine times to park near his law firm has failed in his appeal against being struck off.

A former partner at listed law firm Gateley has been suspended for a year after accepting a £2,500 cash gift from a client and later asking the client for an introduction fee.

Vulnerable clients are being disadvantaged by the “cold, clinical and chaotic manner” in which they are treated by some lawyers, a report for the Legal Services Board has found.

A direct access barrister who failed to justify fees for herself and a colleague of £420,000 plus VAT for a divorce hearing has been fined £5,000 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

A barrister who described a judge’s summary of a witness’s evidence as “absolute rubbish” and asked if the judge was giving evidence has been suspended for four months.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s fining powers should go “considerably beyond” the proposed increase to £25,000, the Legal Services Board has told the Lord Chancellor.

A trainee solicitor who subjected two female colleagues to “harassing and abusive behaviour” at a work Christmas party – groping them and telling one he had “roofied” her drink – has been fined.

The sister and brother partners of an Essex law firm have rejected acquisition offers from larger firms and decided to transfer their shares to an employee ownership trust.

The Legal Services Board has granted permission for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants to formally pull out of probate regulation, having refused it in January.