Solicitors

Only 13% of small businesses believe lawyers “provide a cost-effective means to resolve legal issues”, the biggest survey of its kind has found. The survey also found that small businesses were more likely to use accountants in solving legal problems than solicitors.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has decided not to grade itself as ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ in a self-assessment exercise for the Legal Services Board. Chief executive Paul Philip told a board meeting yesterday that the SRA had chosen to respond “in a humble way” rather than stressing its achievements.

Solicitors will not have to declare on their practicing certificates that they carried out professional training for the year 2015-16, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has admitted. However, they will still have to do their training.

Increased risks accepted by commercial lawyers in an effort to please their clients could result in “law firm collapse”, a report for the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. Three-quarters of lawyers told researchers said they were “forced to accept more and more challenging terms of engagement with little room for discussion”.

There are no depths to the “ingenious means by which these charlatans would seek to dress up their referral fees”, the chairman of the Bar Council has said as he attacked the “grubby and squalid” back-handers paid by some barristers in exchange for work from solicitors.

Cyber criminals have caused “substantial losses” to 50 law firms this year, ranging from £50,000 to £2m, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. The regulator said a further 20 firms had fallen victim to email redirection scams.

Members of the public would take a stricter line on senior solicitors who err in their private lives than would solicitors themselves, research has suggested. The public would also be kinder to young lawyers, according to the findings from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

There is no reason why solicitors setting up a new law firm should not do so as an alternative business structure, the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. Mr Philip predicted that solicitors would in the future be ” business people first”.

A solicitor who deceived his firm and his clients for 13 months into thinking that he was pursuing their group employment tribunal claims, when in fact they had been struck out because of his inactivity, has been removed from the profession.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has closed down the UK’s leading mental health practice, Blavo & Co, and named seven law firms to handle the outstanding case load. The regulator said it had acted because there was “reason to suspect dishonesty”.

A criminal lawyer who failed to report a drink-driving conviction to the Solicitors Regulation Authority has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Gail Evans said she was aware of the need to report convictions but “panic had set in”.

There should be no question of the Solicitors Regulation Authority “bargaining” with solicitors about sanctions, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has made clear. The tribunal rejected a “suggested outcome” proposed by the SRA and a solicitor, and imposed harsher penalties.

There is evidence to suggest that some of the largest law firms are making errors on the ethical approach of their corporate lawyers, while solicitors’ code of conduct is “hopelessly silent” on the problems of commercial practice, according to a leading academic.

It is important that government plans to enhance the quality of criminal defence advocacy in publicly funded cases “should not be designed around one particular professional group”, the Legal Services Board has warned. The comments can be read as coded concern that some of the proposals seem weighted in favour of barristers.

The Ministry of Justice today laid out plans for a statutory ban on solicitors seeking referral fees from advocates in publicly funded criminal cases – even though it admitted that the evidence for the move was “largely anecdotal” – alongside another quality scheme for criminal defence advocates.