Compliance & Regulation

A law firm is at the heart of the largest ever proceeds of crime forfeiture in the UK after an investigation spanning three continents.

The case of a solicitor who was manifestly incompetent in handling a conveyancing transaction is “a warning to the profession” of stepping beyond their expertise, a tribunal has said.

Performance at the Legal Ombudsman will get worse before it gets better as the complaints-handler has admitted recovery will take longer than it anticipated.

The time for talking about race inequality at the Bar is over and all organisations with a stake in the profession should set specific targets for improvement, a major Bar Council report has concluded.

Improving the diversity of those who sit in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal is “front and centre” of a major recruitment drive, according to the Court of Appeal judge overseeing the process.

Licensed conveyancers who generate complaints referred to the Legal Ombudsman will have to shoulder more of its cost than those who do not, after the change won approval.

A solicitor has been struck off after telling a client that her case was ongoing when it had actually settled and using some of the money to pay other clients damages they were not entitled to.

The High Court has rejected a solicitor’s bid to introduce new expert evidence about his mental state as part of his appeal against being struck off earlier this year.

A solicitor who used a disabled badge that did not belong to him nine times to park near his law firm has been struck off, just a couple of months after another was suspended for the same offence.

A solicitor who “concealed nothing” from an elderly client has been cleared of allegations of dishonesty, recklessness and lack of integrity in his conduct of a conveyancing transaction.

A solicitor condemned by one judge for “wanton failures” to comply with court orders and by another for “the worst case of wholesale failure” he had ever seen, has been struck off.

Insurer Axis Specialty Europe is trying to exclude its liability for losses of nearly £6m suffered by a US property company due to a fraud perpetrated by a solicitor.

A non-practising barrister who had his personal injury claim thrown out as fundamentally dishonest has been banned for returning to practice for nine months.

A newly qualified solicitor left holding the fort when the sole principal she was working for was hospitalised, has been rebuked after apparent conveyancing frauds happened on her watch.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to check the training records of solicitor-advocates working in the higher courts, its latest business plan has revealed.