Compliance & Regulation
Consumers willing to pay a little extra for law firms to use TPMAs
Consumers are more comfortable with the idea of their money being held in third-party managed accounts than solicitors’ client accounts, research has suggested.
SDT removes conditions on “redeemed” solicitor’s practice
A solicitor prevented from being a law firm owner, partner or compliance officer for the last seven years has successfully applied to have the conditions on her practising certificate removed.
LSB’s economic crime guidance may foster inconsistent approaches
Proposed new guidance on how the legal regulators should meet their new statutory duty to deal with economic crime could lead to inconsistencies of approach.
Lack of sanction for costs draftsman shows “hole in regulation”
A judge’s comments on the lack of recourse against an unregulated costs draftsman should focus minds on this hole in legal regulation, the Association of Costs Lawyers has argued.
Bar Council: BSB’s proposed equality rule change is unlawful
The new, proactive equality duty proposed by the Bar Standards Board could lead to litigation with barristers and is unlawful, the Bar Council said yesterday.
High Court upholds LeO’s decision to dismiss complaint
The Legal Ombudsman was right to dismiss a complaint it thought better suited to be determined in court, a judge has ruled.
Fine for solicitor who used client account as personal banking facility
A solicitor who used his firm’s client account as a personal banking facility did not need to admit that he had damaged public trust, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has held.
Mayson: Lawyers must prioritise public interest over clients
Lawyers seem to have forgotten that the public interest trumps the client interest and this needs to change, Professor Stephen Mayson has argued.
Barrister disbarred for making ‘fundamentally dishonest’ PI claim
A barrister who a court found had been fundamentally dishonest in making a personal injury claim has been disbarred.
SRA lays out major reforms to how solicitors hold client money
Major changes to the way law firms hold client money, including not retaining interest and restricting the collection of fees in advance, were proposed yesterday by the SRA.
“Reasons to be cautious” about pre-approval of law firm M&A
There are “reasons to be cautious” around the Solicitors Regulation Authority becoming more involved when law firms go through mergers and acquisitions, it said yesterday.
SRA set to shift balance of who pays for compensation fund
The 50/50 split between individual solicitors and firms in their funding of the SRA Compensation Fund should be changed to 70/30, the regulator has recommended.
Moorhead: “We have to change the way lawyers think and behave”
The leading figure on legal ethics in the UK has called for the creation of an independent commission charged with improving “honesty, integrity and effectiveness in the use of law”.
Barrister who held and dipped into client money suspended
A direct access barrister who impermissibly held a divorce client’s money and then did not pay all of it back has been suspended for 18 months by a disciplinary tribunal.
Barristers “wrongly think they work within AML regulations”
Barristers are wrongly stating that their work is covered by the money laundering regulations in their annual declarations to the Bar Standards Board, it has emerged.
Blog
Why law firms are getting AI supervision wrong
The profession’s response to AI supervision failures misunderstands the nature of LLM output – there needs to be for a shift in the culture.
Beyond the PII premium – rethinking risk
Professional indemnity insurance renewal is often treated as an annual pricing exercise. But it is also a chance to show how effectively you identify, manage and mitigate risk.
The AI governance gap in law firms and why it matters now
A third of law firms are already using AI tools with no formal policy in place to govern how AI gets used, what data goes into it, or who’s accountable when something goes wrong.
Reports
Associates
