Compliance & Regulation

At least 15 consumer claims law firms have gone bust in the last five years owing more than £400m and poor practices in the sector will likely lead to more, a leading insurer has predicted.

A solicitor who paid away proceeds of a property sale in breach of an undertaking and then loaned the client the money to make up the shortfall, has been fined for misconduct.

Poor-quality immigration legal aid work is having “devastating consequences” for clients and better support from the Solicitors Regulation Authority would help, a report has found.

Most sanctions non-compliance by UK legal services providers is due to breaches of Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation licence conditions, it has revealed.

CILEx Regulation has launched plans for chartered legal executives to obtain standalone rights to conduct litigation without having to seek rights of audience at the same time.

An assistant solicitor whose failure to comply with an undertaking in a property transaction cost his firm’s insurer £440,000 has been fined £5,500.

A chartered legal executive who fabricated court pleadings, expert reports and letters from third parties has been disqualified from working for solicitors’ firms.

Solicitors need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly by their regulator if they are to be encouraged to admit errors, a former partner suspended for misconduct has argued.

A leading employment lawyer has hit out at the conduct of some law firms when negotiating non-disclosure agreements for employers.

The barrister and amateur photographer suspended for two years for a conversation with a woman about nude modelling made the comments to a trainee police officer.

Relationships with litigation funders are destabilising some high-volume consumer claims law firms, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has warned solicitors of the dangers of acting for family members after fining one who preferred his wife in the distribution of an estate.

The money employers have to pay employees for legal advice on settlement agreements is not enough to deal with the NDAs they routinely include, MPs were told yesterday.

Law firms should adopt a ‘legitimate provenance of wealth test’ when taking on clients as part of an ethics-based approach that goes beyond legal or regulatory tests.

The first solicitor prosecuted for ‘tipping off’ a client about a money laundering investigation has now been suspended for allowing a client to use his firm’s account as a banking facility.