Compliance & Regulation

Reforms to the way legal services are regulated north of the border, including the introduction of alternative business structures with majority non-lawyer ownership, moved a step closer last week.

The “lack of energy” from legal regulators to deal with what appears to be strategic failures of regulation is becoming “mildly ridiculous”, the chief executive of the LSB has argued.

Solicitors are still engaging in dubious practices around non-disclosure agreements and strategic lawsuits against public participation, despite regulatory warnings, it was claimed last week.

There is a “higher level of confidence” among law firm buyers and “clear signs that the scale and pace” of M&A will increase in 2024, a report has found.

Members of the public may “reasonably question” the ‘wait and see’ approach of the SRA to disciplinary action in the Post Office scandal, a regulatory expert and former SRA manager has said.

The SRA is going ahead with plans to introduce the same system of fee caps for law firms handling financial services mis-selling claims as the Financial Conduct Authority has for CMCs.

A law firm administrator who paid herself £1,450 using pre-signed cheques, which she claimed was to refund money she had spent on office tea and coffee, has been barred from the profession.

A barrister has been suspended for six months after being convicted for what a tribunal described as “a sustained, angry and violent physical assault” which was “clearly the result of heavy drinking”.

Two law firms that have not had their anti-money laundering policies in order for several years have been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A law firm that held nearly £600,000 in hundreds of residual client balances dating back 28 years has been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The SRA today starts a conversation about the future of client protection arrangements, the extreme end of which could see the end of firms holding client money and of the Compensation Fund.

A solicitor has been jailed for two years after admitting abusing her position to steal tens of thousands of pounds from two vulnerable people, one of whom was her father.

A legal helpline adviser at Irwin Mitchell was not under a duty to advise a prospective client of steps she needed to take to protect her position, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to consult on how it would regulate CILEX paralegals and students in the next stage of its work on assuming oversight of the legal executive profession.

Consumer claims firm SSB Law, which went into administration earlier this month owing six litigation funders £200m, faces up to 1,400 professional negligence claims, it has emerged.