Compliance & Regulation

A man whose parents granted a charge over their house to repay the £90,000 misappropriated from his law firm employer has failed to overturn a ban on working in the profession.

The Bar Standards Board has the right approach to dealing with complaints about barristers’ conduct but there are “a large number of areas” for improvement, a major review has concluded.

A group of campaigners have called on the BSB to drop its prosecution of high-profile and self-declared feminist barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman over criticisms she made of a judge.

The SRA is going ahead with plans to move its English or Welsh language proficiency checks from the point where solicitors apply for their first practising certificates to the point of admission.

The Bar Council has strongly attacked plans by the Bar Standards Board to scrap the requirement that Bar students must have at least a lower second-class degree.

Around 2,750 students who took one or both parts of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination have now qualified, new Solicitors Regulation Authority figures have shown.

A lack of immigration advisers “encourages those who seek to provide advice illegally”, the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner has warned.

The SRA has withdrawn all its allegations against a solicitor and non-lawyer after the Foreign Office advised against taking evidence remotely from a crucial witness in Dubai.

The Law Society wants solicitors to pay £1.76m more towards its operations next year, taking the amount the profession contributes to nearly £37m.

The solicitor struck off for tweets on Israel and Palestine shifted from making potentially valid political points “to being purely offensive and stooping to use racist and antisemitic language”.

HM Treasury is seeking improved “proportionality” and “additional clarity” in plans for technical changes to the 2017 Money Laundering Regulations.

The outgoing head of the LSB has questioned why ‘trade associations’ like the Law Society and Bar Council receive a “statutory funding stream” from regulatory fees paid by lawyers.

Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman that require investigation will have to wait for nearly three months before work begins and up to nine months for a conclusion.

A solicitor jailed in New York for 20 months after being convicted of conspiring to defraud the US Internal Revenue Service has been struck off.

A solicitor who dishonestly misled his client, the court and opposing solicitors into thinking he was working at a law firm, when he was not, has been struck off.