Compliance & Regulation

A solicitor who has failed to pay thousands of pounds in outstanding fees to counsel has been fined by the SRA, with others fined for accounts and transparency rules breaches.

A former paralegal at national law firm BLM has been jailed for three years and three months after pleading guilty to stealing £438,000 from the firm to feed his gambling habit.

MPs and peers have called for “a radical overhaul” of anti-money laundering supervision, with regulators of lawyers urged to issue wrongdoers with “bigger, more public” fines.

A proposal by the Legal Ombudsman to cut the time limit for consumers to bring a complaint from six years to one “goes too far”, the Bar Standards Board has argued.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor whose conduct has led to 25 claims on the SRA Compensation Fund totalling £750,000 from conveyancing clients.

Law firms selling pre-paid funeral plans as intermediaries may need to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

Details of disciplinary and other regulatory action taken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority could be published for longer than the current three years to combat misinformation online.

Listed company Marlowe has made Compliance Office – a business that advises law firms on compliance with Solicitors Regulation Authority rules – the latest addition to its fast-growing legal arm.

Legal regulators need to have summary processes in place to deal with vexatious litigants who use their procedures to continue a “proxy war” against lawyers, a High Court judge has said.

A solicitor has been struck off for sexually assaulting the wife of a “long-term friend” as she slept, after drinking downstairs with her husband who fell asleep.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set to increase its budget by £5.3m in the coming year, with staff costs and the Solicitors Qualifying Exam the main drivers.

A solicitor struck off for “outrageous plundering” of the assets of an elderly client suffering from dementia has now been jailed for six years.

Consumers are open to the idea of mandatory professional indemnity insurance cover being lower and therefore cheaper, with the option to top it up, research has suggested.

Two solicitors have found themselves in regulatory bother because of the involvement of family in the matters they were dealing with, one a property purchase and the other a will.

The SRA’s proposed new rule requiring solicitors to treat colleagues with respect is in part aimed at filling a hole exposed by the prosecution of Ryan Beckwith, it was claimed yesterday.