Compliance & Regulation

The past year has seen a “step change” in the adoption of legal technology and innovation, in part as a result of Covid-19, a major piece of new research has found. However, significant barriers remain.

Men are four times more likely than women to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, despite gender parity in the profession, academics have found.

A solicitor found to have misled a court, lied to a client about receiving money from them and falsely held himself out as a notary public has avoided being struck off.

Parliament should extend the courts’ supervisory jurisdiction over solicitors’ undertakings to cover those given by incorporated law firms, particularly LLPs, the Supreme Court said today.

Solicitors under investigation by their regulator are increasingly citing workplace bullying as a reason for their misconduct, according to a report published yesterday.

The High Court has ruled that the Bar Standards Board made “unjust and unsustainable” decisions in refusing a Bar student’s application for an exemption from the vocational element of his training.

Most law firms are planning to formalise hybrid working arrangements for staff but a significant number have yet to deal with all the compliance implications, research has found.

The Lord Chancellor yesterday described CILEX lawyers as some of the most impressive lawyers he has seen and said the country needed more judges from their ranks.

Work has begun to create a consistent approach across all the legal regulators to sexual misconduct, racial harassment, bullying and other forms of “anti-inclusive misconduct”.

The joint head of a law firm’s prison law department has agreed to be struck off after making legal aid claims for prison visits which never took place.

Two innocent partners of a solicitor jailed for a multi-million-pound theft from their firm’s client account can rely on a limitation defence after being sued for the losses caused, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

A solicitor who forged documents for a £30,000 loan, secured against his matrimonial home during an “acrimonious” divorce, has been struck off, even though the events did not relate to his practice.

The current regulatory approach to lawyers’ ongoing competence needs to change, the Legal Services Board has concluded, with assessments such as spot checks likely to be part of the reform.

A solicitor who entered into a damages-based agreement with a family law client and pursued her for costs under it has been fined £10,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Only 10% of students who successfully completed the Bar professional training course last year had started a pupillage by the end of March 2021, according to new figures.