Compliance & Regulation

A solicitor who plundered his firm’s client account for nearly £400,000, while failing to redeem a mortgage or pay stamp duty as required, has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

A solicitor who tried to “juggle” client money to meet her firm’s needs, and to claim that purchases from a cosmetics website were for the business, has been struck off.

A solicitor’s misconduct cannot negate a non-solicitor employee’s misconduct or shield them from being banned from working for law firms, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled.

The High Court’s much-debated ruling on former Freshfields partner Ryan Beckwith “does little to offer any useful clarity” on the boundary between solicitors’ professional and personal lives, a white paper has argued. The paper, produced by regulation specialists at City… Read More

A former solicitor who had access to the files of matters he had referred to his conveyancing manager wife has been given the lowest-level sanction by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal

A high-profile City litigator has been struck off for using a client’s divorce settlement to fund his ventures to pursue digital dispute resolution. A tribunal rejected his claim that the client had agreed to it.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority spends too much time on diversity training and monitoring, and not enough on assuring that its enforcement staff act in a non-biased way, it has been claimed.

A former partner at a Yorkshire law firm who submitted a false statement to the probate court as part of the oath for executors has agreed to leave the profession.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has rejected allegations that a pro-Beijing lawyer and politician based in Hong Kong called for pro-independence protestors to be “killed mercilessly”.

The president of the Law Society is to step down later this month in the wake of a High Court ruling that the SDT was wrong to dismiss a prosecution brought against him by a former client.

A solicitor and her practice manager husband jailed for legal aid fraud have failed in their bid to set aside a default judgment for nearly £5m obtained by the Ministry of Justice.

A major City law firm should not be ordered to pay into court $325m it is holding in an escrow account, because it risks being prosecuted in America if it does, the High Court has ruled.

A solicitor who said he did not know that he had been appointed a partner and compliance officer for legal practice (COLP) of his firm has been rebuked.

A solicitor who failed to supervise a caseworker he wrongly thought to be a barrister and also fly tipped legal documents containing client information has been fined.

A solicitor left clients “high and dry” by failing to register their property purchases and pay stamp duty, while misappropriating some £175,000 of their money, a tribunal has found.