Compliance & Regulation

Some law firms may have to make structural changes to ameliorate the impact of the government’s economic crime levy, solicitors have warned.

Data already in the public domain cannot easily be adapted to help consumers choose a lawyer, mainly due to failings by legal regulators, according to research.

The Transparency Task Force has been granted access to a limited number of documents used in Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearings relating to a collapsed Brazilian property investment scheme.

Bar students should be given detailed information from chambers about their pupillage criteria to avoid suffering from “buyer’s remorse” when they realise how difficult it is to succeed.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has almost quadrupled the number of suspicious activity reports it sends to the police about possible money laundering by law firms.

A pilot version of an unbundled family law service for litigants in person has enabled them to save 70% on legal fees and is to be expanded; meanwhile, the SRA is to run its own unbundling pilot.

The High Court has rejected an appeal from a solicitor struck off after being recorded by an undercover TV reporter giving advice on what he knew was a sham marriage.

An English law firm and an Italian multi-disciplinary practice offering accounting, tax and unreserved legal services have formed a novel association to assist each other’s clients.

CILEx Regulation has become the sixth body to license an alternative business structure after approving an application from lifetime planning and bereavement firm Trust Inheritance.

A Bar student who handled agency advocacy work through a law firm was a worker with certain rights and not self-employed, an employment tribunal has ruled.

A barrister who travelled across the country with the intention of sexually abusing teenage girls – unaware that they were not real – has been jailed for three and a half years.

Nearly 1,200 people have signed up to take the first ever Solicitors Qualifying Examination assessment in November, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed.

A second paralegal working at National Accident Law has been banned from the profession for charging clients for more calls than she actually made.

A non-practising barrister has been reprimanded and fined for describing herself as a “barrister at law” on emails and telling a client she could represent her.

A sister and brother have been struck off as solicitors for putting their own financial interests ahead of clients who lost money in dubious parking space and storage pod investment schemes.