Solicitors

MPs have called on the government to put pressure on the Solicitors Regulation Authority to stop personal injury lawyers “playing the system” by commissioning unnecessary medical reports on psychological injuries.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided to go ahead with cutting the minimum compulsory cover for indemnity insurance from £2m to £500,000, despite strong opposition from the Law Society.

Bogus law firms and money laundering have become two of the biggest current risks to law firms, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said yesterday, in publishing its 2014 risk outlook.

A solicitor jailed for smuggling drugs and mobile phones into prisons for inmates was last week struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). He took the contraband into prisons using oversized shoes.

The Law Society is planning to use the European Court of Justice’s ruling on the right to be forgotten online to challenge anti-solicitor websites. The news comes as the society said it was to write to the FCA, SRA and police over Wonga’s use of bogus law firms.

The Law Society is set to reduce the cost of practising by around 20%, even though its budget is going up in 2014/15. The net funding requirement for the next financial year is £116.7m, a 3.7% increase on this year’s budget.

Enid Rowlands, an existing member of the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, has been named as its first non-lawyer chair. Ms Rowlands will succeed Charles Plant from 1 January 2015 after he completes four years in the role.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposed indemnity insurance reforms have been attacked from all sides by the legal services consumer panel, the Law Society and the insurance industry itself.

Retiring Law Society chief executive Des Hudson saw his pay soar nearly 20% last year, it has emerged – but the society did turn a significant deficit into a surplus during that time.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority have agreed that transitional arrangements for firms wanting to carry out consumer credit activities will be extended by a further six months, from 30 September 2014 to 1 April 2015.

Firms applying for alternative business structure (ABS) status believe the Solicitors Regulation Authority takes too long to approve applications and its staff are too “bureaucratic”, according to the regulator’s own research.

The Legal Services Board has approved wide-ranging plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to deregulate training, including the delayed demise of the minimum salary.

The government announced over the weekend that it is to ban lawyers from “encouraging people to make claims” by offering them upfront incentives like cash or iPads. It forms part of a new wave of reform in personal injury targeted at insurance fraud.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has cut the number of law firms failing to hand over data on the diversity of their staff from 1,106 to 108. The regulator said it had made it “very clear” to the remaining firms that they would face enforcement action.

Small firms and sole practitioners could be removed from conveyancing panels if the Solicitors Regulation Authority goes ahead with its indemnity insurance reforms, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has warned.