Solicitors

The Law Society does not oppose non-graduates becoming solicitors, despite its chief executive saying earlier this week that they would devalue the qualification, it said yesterday. Catherine Dixon had written that the SRA plan to allow non-graduates to qualify had the potential to damage the profession’s reputation.

The Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority yesterday drew the battle lines that will define the argument over independent regulation of the legal profession. The question was not whether the regulatory arms of bodies such as the Law Society should be independent – which the government said last year they should be – but what functions they would have under a new settlement.

A sole practitioner who refused to close his firm after failing to find indemnity insurance has been struck off and ordered to pay £20,000 costs. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal described Anthony Alabi as having a “cavalier attitude to regulation”.

The Law Society yesterday rowed back from its support for would-be solicitors being able to qualify without degrees, putting it at odds with government backing for apprenticeships. Its chief executive said allowing it risked damaging the profession’s standing and even the global status of England and Wales as a jurisdiction.

A sole practitioner who was the victim of fraudsters and raided his clients’ money to pay them off, has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He claimed he had been threatened by the fraudsters, who would come to his house to collect their money.

Many judges are not “advocacy trainers” and may produce “subjective” evaluations under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates scheme, solicitor-advocates have warned. The Solicitors’ Association of Higher Court Advocates said there was a danger that some judges would assess on the basis of how they would have done it.

Law firms no longer need to carry out reserved activities in order to be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority – but the regulator has offered assurances that it will not seek to bring the currently unregulated into its net as a form of quasi-accreditation.

A compliance officer for finance and administration at a Lincoln law firm has agreed to have his activities in the profession restricted after admitting to misappropriating £120,000 in a rare regulatory settlement agreement involving a non-solicitor.

A judge who wrongly questioned the status of a solicitor after doing his own research on the Law Society’s website, has been criticised by the Court of Appeal. The judge at Central London County Court complained that he had prosecuted “too many swindlers” as a barrister, and was “naturally suspicious of everybody, particularly in this court”.

The general public strongly supports the notion of full separation of legal regulators from professional bodies, according to the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The Law Society hit back by appearing to suggest an SRA stripped of its power to set solicitors’ standards should be merged with other legal regulators.

Small law firms have the most to lose if a Solicitors Qualifying Examination is introduced as it may downgrade the value of being part of the profession, a leading legal academic has warned. Professor Anthony Bradney said the exam could be a way for solicitors to “very rapidly lose their reputation”.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor who failed to meet a deadline to submit applications to the First-tier Tribunal, and then fabricated documents which purported to show that he had, in an attempt to deceive both the tribunal and the other side.

A solicitor convicted of perverting the course of justice for sharing information about police activities with drug dealers has won the right to a further appeal hearing on the issue of legal professional privilege. Basharat Ali Ditta was jailed for three years by Liverpool Crown Court.

A High Court judge has said there is a “strongly arguable case” that collapsed firm Blavo & Co, formerly the UK’s leading mental health practice, made “many thousands” of false legal aid claims. The court heard that following its collapse, the firm owed the Legal Aid Agency over £22m.

A solicitor who allowed her firm’s client account to be used as a banking facility by a property investment company has been suspended by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Theresa Quartey was described by the SDT as “inconsistent, contradictory and at times evasive” in her evidence.