Compliance & Regulation

The Law Society and SRA need to do more to show that they take on board what solicitors have to say about the cost of practising, the Legal Services Board has warned.

The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme is a “market barrier”, blocking entry to non-solicitor law firms, the Competition and Markets Authority has been told.

A “manifestly incompetent” partner, whose “neglect and carelessness” led to a shortage in her law firm’s client account of £214,000, has been suspended for 18 months.

Compliance with the rules on price and service transparency is improving but a stubborn minority are facing disciplinary action, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said.

A solicitor kept money meant for counsel for several months, altered the date of a fee note from his chambers and then pleaded with her boss to hide it from the regulator.

A leading criminal law solicitor convicted of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman while drunk in Newcastle city centre on New Year’s Eve has been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

An under-pressure trainee solicitor who billed for work she anticipated doing has not been sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, even though she did not eventually do it.

The LSB has issued a damning diagnosis of weaknesses in the structure of the market, including inadequate transparency by law firms and smaller regulators unable to cope with the change needed.

A solicitor who sent hundreds of offensive emails and tweets to the law firm acting for him in a dispute – and was convicted of a public order offence – has agreed to remove himself from the roll.

A proposal that in-house legal departments should be regulated as a separate regulated business unit within their organisations has been broadly welcomed by senior company lawyers.

A barrister has been reprimanded and fined for misleading Google in trying to get a negative review taken down. He said he had been subjected to “distressing online trolling”.

A QC who accused prosecution counsel of bad faith without reasonable grounds was in breach of Bar Standards Board rules but not to the level of professional misconduct, a tribunal has ruled.

A barrister has been reprimanded and fined for suggesting that a female Asian judge only secured her position as a result of “positive discrimination”.

Students could save as much as £38,000 when qualifying as a solicitor following the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination next September, a report has estimated.

A solicitor recorded by an undercover TV reporter giving advice on what he knew was a sham marriage has been struck off for the second time by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.