Solicitors

Law firms will be held responsible for breaching the personal injury referral fee ban if they sign up to ventures that appear to be genuine joint marketing schemes but prove illegal, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. It will also target senior individuals within firms that “recklessly trade into insolvency”.

There will be close scrutiny on the Solicitors Regulation Authority to ensure that alternative business structures (ABSs) tying insurers and solicitors together prioritise their duties to injured people, the regulator was warned yesterday.

The Legal Services Board is to keep the performance of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in issuing alternative business structure licences under scrutiny, it has emerged. We have discovered that in January it issued a statutory notice requiring the SRA to provide information.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is holding firm against criticism over its position on unrated professional indemnity insurers after Latvian underwriter Balva – which covers 1,300 law firms – was prohibited from writing new UK business.

The total number of firms and individuals in trouble with the Solicitors Regulation Authority over nominations for compliance officers has risen by a third in the past month to nearly 800, it has emerged.

A quarter of conveyancing firms have experienced a client attempting to commit property-related fraud or money laundering, new research has revealed. This frequency suggests that many firms “might be over-optimistic” about the likelihood of encountering similar attempts in the future

The Legal Services Board has criticised the Solicitors Regulation Authority for restricting liberalisation of the rule that previously prevented local authorities from charging charities and voluntary organisations for legal services.

Criminal barristers are preparing to boycott the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), but only if there is a pledge from counsel outside those circuits affected first not to step in and take the work.

A company that provides both claims management services and legal expenses insurance has joined forces with a law firm in an alternative business structure that needed a waiver to allow a 27-year-old solicitor to be its head of legal practice. It was one of two newly licensed CMCs.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has outlined the three key financial ‘warning signs’ against which it will assess firms’ financial stability as a key element of its supervisory work over the next year. It is also to end the need for firms to submit an annual report on non-material rule breaches.

Desperate solicitors are pillaging their VAT receipts, inner circles of managers are sitting on bad financial results, and firms are borrowing heavily to maintain drawings, according to a bleak risk assessment by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The managing partner of Blakemores – which suddenly closed on Monday – said the firm was almost saved by its consumer-facing Lawyers2you brand but succumbed to a string of financial blows. Guy Blakemore gave a candid interview to Legal Futures.

More than 600 solicitors and law firms are facing action over their failures in nominating compliance officers, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has revealed. It said the level of non-compliance was disappointing.

The Legal Services Board yesterday put the seal of approval on the SRA’s plans to regulate the referral fee ban. The news came as the Law Society pressed the LSB to provide reassurance that the way referral fees are regulated will be consistent across the entire legal profession.

The Legal Services Board has overstepped its bounds, distorted the Legal Services Act’s regulatory balance, aligned itself too closely with the government, and intervened in matters beyond its competence, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has charged.