Compliance & Regulation

The Legal Services Board is set to trim back the increase in its budget for the coming year to 10%, while also approving a 7% rise in the Legal Ombudsman’s budget.

MPs’ backing for a review of legal regulation has split opinion in the market, pitching the Legal Services Consumer Panel and Professor Stephen Mayson against the Law Society.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s approach to fines has been branded unfair and “schizophrenic” in the wake of hefty penalties handed out to solicitors convicted of drink-driving.

A former solicitor struck off after being jailed for five years for perverting the course of justice has failed in his attempt to return to the profession.

The case for re-examining the regulatory framework created by the Legal Services Act 2007 is “growing stronger and stronger”, MPs have told the government.

Who lawyers choose to act for is not a regulatory issue – and the Solicitors Regulation Authority needs to be clear on this, a leading legal regulatory specialist said yesterday.

The Bar Standards Board could ask foreign lawyers seeking to be called in England and Wales to prove they intend to practise here, it has emerged.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has outlined its plans to regulate the thousands of Chartered Institute of Legal Executives members who are paralegals and students.

A newly qualified solicitor who “falsely recorded time across a number of files” to show his law firm that he was meeting his billing target has been struck off.

The Lady Chief Justice yesterday spoke out in support of the cab-rank rule, arguing that without it “law and justice become an arbitrary concept”.

A solicitor who lied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority after failing to renew his firm’s professional indemnity insurance has been struck off.

A male solicitor who groped and propositioned a female colleague at his firm’s Christmas party has been suspended for three months.

A struck-off solicitor and money launderer has finally satisfied the £716,719 confiscation order made against him in 2017, after facing a return to jail.

In-house lawyers should not think they are special because of their wider duties to the court as this risks alienating them from their business colleagues, it was claimed yesterday.

A former barrister who was disbarred for antisemitic and racist tweets has now been handed a nine-month community order for grossly offensive antisemitic material posted on his blog.