Compliance & Regulation

KPMG is set to become the first of the Big Four accountancy firms to set up a regulated law firm in the US after applying for a licence in the state that allows non-lawyer owners.

It is “an indictment” on all the legal regulators that “nothing substantial” has been done to tackle the problem of “complex and difficult to read” client-care letters.

A paralegal who did not make the dozens of phone calls he recorded in attendance notes has been disqualified. He also reallocated his files to colleagues without telling them.

A solicitor who dishonestly created and backdated a letter to the landlord of a vulnerable client has been handed a 12-month suspension, suspended for 24 months.

A CILEX lawyer who misled her lender client so as to complete a residential property transaction has been made subject to a control order by the SRA.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has used the enhanced fining power to issue more than £1.5m fines on solicitors in its first two years, new figures have shown.

Alan Blacker – the struck-off solicitor once dubbed by a judge as dressing “like something out of Harry Potter” – has failed in a challenge to a decision refusing him membership of the Bar.

A recently qualified solicitor at Irwin Mitchell who misled multiple contentious probate clients about the progress of their cases has been struck off.

A barrister who won a bid to have his disbarment for sexual harassing two pupils and a woman on a mini-pupillage reconsidered has been disbarred once again.

The SRA has been ordered to pay a solicitor costs of £184,000 over a prosecution the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal described as “improperly brought”.

A high-profile Italian lawyer who failed to declare various adverse findings about himself when applying to be called to the English Bar has been reprimanded and fined £50,000.

The SRA is to question probate solicitors who “simply listed” in their training records what they had done, rather than providing “evidence of reflection”.

The High Court has upheld a six-month suspension imposed on a barrister who failed to comply with a court order to pay £54,600 to a former salaried partner in his law firm.

Two experienced partners who submitted paperwork to HM Land Registry with fake names to conceal the true owners of properties have been struck off.

The cost of practising as a barrister is set to rise by 8.5%, in part to finance continuing investigations into counsel involved in the Post Office scandal.