Compliance & Regulation

There has been a 9% increase in the number of complaints to law firms last year, but they continue to resolve eight out of 10 themselves, according to official statistics.

A conveyancing paralegal who tried to cover up her mistake in not sending an updated plan to the buyers’ solicitor has been banned from working in the profession.

Little more than a third (37%) of barristers, chambers and firms regulated by the Bar Standards Board are fully complying with its rules on price and service transparency, it has emerged.

An assistant solicitor who took over a firm after the principal was struck off allowed her to keep practising under her maiden name, use the firm’s office and be sole signatory on its bank accounts.

A barrister who sits as a tribunal chair for the Nursing and Midwifery Council is a ‘worker’ and entitled to holiday pay, an employment tribunal has ruled, opening the door to thousands of other claims.

The Legal Ombudsman is taking five months just to pass any new complaints to an investigator as it struggles to cope with the impact of Covid-19.

A solicitor has been rebuked for trying to include a ban on her former employer referring her to any regulatory authority as part of a settlement of disputes between the two.

An MP has urged select committees to investigate the role of law firms – and in particular Herbert Smith Freehills – in helping client companies accused of wrongdoing set up compensation schemes.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to end the practice of allowing trainee solicitors to obtain higher rights of audience but has reversed course on its proposed approach to advocacy in the youth courts.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided to implement its controversial plan to cut the maximum award from its Compensation Fund from £2m to £500,000.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal rejected a quarter of the outcomes agreed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and defendants last year, its annual report has revealed.

Larger law firms face a new levy of £100-200 per £1m of revenue to support the government’s economic crime plan, under proposals outlined by the Treasury yesterday.

Lawyers have become “de facto agents of the Russian state” by helping to smooth the way of Russian money entering the UK, according to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.

A compliance officer for finance and administration who helped the firm’s owner use £500,000 received for disbursements to prop up the firm has accepted a ban from the profession.

The former head of business development at a leading defendant law firm has been jailed for four years after a police raid discovered 6,000 indecent images of children on his computer and other devices.