Compliance & Regulation

The COLP at leading City law firm Kennedys has been cleared of failing to adequately investigate concerns about a property development it was advising on.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has introduced a new policy which aims to cut the number of non-party disclosure applications by the press and public.

The Post Office inquiry shows that legal professional privilege presents “significant problems of principle and practice” and needs urgent reform, leading academics have argued.

A first-six pupil barrister who accessed a file without permission that helped her with a training exercise, and then pretended she had not, has been suspended for 18 months.

Lawyers’ lack of proper regard for ethics, and their “disproportionate focus” on client interests above all else, means regulators need to take action to improve compliance.

The Serious Fraud Office has secured its first unexplained wealth order against the ex-wife of Tim Schools, the jailed struck-off solicitor behind the Axiom Fund fraud.

A US lawyer representing Meta has publicly announced that he has “fired” the company as a client, citing “Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has urged law firms to protect themselves from sham litigation, which can be used to bypass anti-money laundering rules.

The amount of immigration and asylum advice available across the UK “does not meet the need or demand”, the rebranded Immigration Advice Authority has said.

Barristers may “sometimes allow their zeal to advance a client’s interests to embrace tactics which are ethically questionable”, their regulator said yesterday.

A lack of digital skills across the UK could be a risk for consumers and law firms if lawyers “do not fully understand” new technology, the SRA has warned.

A specialist chambers of financial services barristers is filling “a gap in the market” by setting up as an alternative business structure regulated by the Bar Standards Board.

A partner at leading fee-share firm gunnercooke has been fined £14,000 for using the practice’s client account as a banking facility.

A solicitor has been struck off for telling clients to pay small sums of money into his personal account – but, very unusually, his identity has been kept secret.

A conveyancing partner who asked the seller’s solicitor if he could backdate completion by a day to save his client stamp duty land tax has been struck off.