Solicitors

There is a “real risk” that members of the public will view the Solicitors Regulation Authority as “simply preferring the word of solicitors”, its independent review body has concluded. The Independent Complaint Resolution Service called for a review of compensation claim fund claims.

A decision by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to grant retrospective anonymity to a solicitor who had only been found guilty of a technical rule breach flouted the principle of open justice, the High Court has ruled. The tribunal made a decision that was “wrong in principle and not one which it could rationally make”.

Almost half of asylum seekers are not satisfied with the service provided by their lawyers, a report for the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman has found. It exposed how some firms paid interpreters to recruit asylum seeker clients at ports and detention centres.

A “tranche” of top commercial lawyers “has effectively become privately regulated by the clients they seek to serve”, a leading academic has said. Dr Steven Vaughan said some were “happy to be captured” by clients.

A City law firm partner has been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority after an assault conviction for a “domestic incident”. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order, but retains the support of his firm.

A former partner in a criminal law firm has described how he deliberately broke professional rules to get a murderer convicted. Steve Chittenden said: “The dilemma is between the rules and natural justice.”

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has voiced “serious doubts” over whether a solicitor, aged 79 and “with almost 50 years of exemplary service”, should have been referred to it for prosecution. Reginald Hemmings told the tribunal he found the experience “extremely distressing”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to research this year whether standards of criminal advocacy are declining and whether solicitors are to blame. As part of the research, the SRA said it would ask judges whether solicitor-advocates were “working beyond their level of competence”.

London law firm Leigh Day has come out fighting after it emerged that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has referred it to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over its conduct in representing hundreds of Iraqis who claimed that they had been abused or unlawfully detained by British forces during the Iraq war.

Southport law firm Barnetts was a business in “dire straits” and other solicitors “would feel ashamed” at the actions of its senior partner in trying to keep it afloat, which included misusing and not repaying a £4.86m loan, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled.

Simon Armitage, a sole practitioner jailed for four years in October for fraud, has been struck off in his absence by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Although the solicitor had wished to come off the roll voluntarily, it was “in the public interest” for his misconduct to be “aired before the tribunal”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has again maintained the City bias on its board with its latest batch of appointments. Like last year, two City solicitor members have left the board and been replaced with two more – one from magic circle firm Freshfields and the other in-house at ITV.

Solicitors should abandon the concept of “perfection” and concentrate instead on improving their performance, a City training chief has said. The legal learning leader at Hogan Lovells said the firm was one of the first big practices to opt into the new non-point based CPD regime introduced in April.

A Hull law firm has been closed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority because there was “reason to suspect dishonesty” on the part of a partner and member of staff. Companies House showed that HSBC has a fixed and floating charge over all of the firm’s assets.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has again criticised the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority prosecuted a case against a solicitor, after deciding that a partner who had a “genuine but misguided” belief about the status of one of his employees had not acted dishonestly in what he told his insurer.