Solicitors

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has ruled that three Italian lawyers based in London committed a host of accounting irregularities while acting for clients in overseas property deals.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposed whistleblowing policy could undermine the role of compliance officers, fail to work because of mistrust by lawyers, and clash with solicitors’ ethical duties, according to the Law Society.

The meeting of heads of chambers on the South Eastern Circuit last week ended in unanimous opposition to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) in its current form, it has emerged.

The City of London Law Society and Commercial Bar Association have published model terms of business for barristers instructed in commercial cases after more than two years of negotiation. The Bar Council’s new standard terms were deemed unacceptable by some solicitors.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will start in September, nine months later than planned, it was announced yesterday. The revised timetable was released just hours before heads of chambers met to discuss their response to QASA.

Barristers could end up uninsured and in financial hardship if they agree to variations of their new standard terms of contract recommended by the Law Society, the Bar Council has warned. It said it was “surprised and disappointed” at the tone of Chancery Lane’s practice note.

Transactional lawyers should be held accountable if their advice is used by clients for unlawful acts and strict conduct rules are necessary to police this rather than an outcomes-focused principle, law academics have argued.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is again lobbying the government to raise the amount it can fine traditional law firms after its previous attempt to catapult the limit from £2,000 to £250m was rejected last autumn. The revelation came in a consultation on proposed fining guidelines.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates is illogical in its treatment of QCs and does not serve the public interest by allowing solicitors to act as plea-only advocates, the chairman of the Bar Council has argued. The claims come as the bodies representing criminal law solicitors and barristers united in calling for a halt to the scheme.

Legal regulators have failed to open up their professional registers containing disciplinary information to price comparison websites, despite having been instructed to do so by the Legal Services Board, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has complained.

The Law Society has urged solicitors to protect themselves against the new terms of business being introduced by the Bar next week because they are “weighted strongly” in favour of barristers. From 31 January the traditional default system of non-contractual terms will be replaced.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is confident of its interpretation of the referral fee ban but simply cannot give the level of clarity over which business models will comply that many want, the official leading the work said yesterday.

The scale of non-compliance with the SRA over COLPs and COFAs became clear yesterday, with 152 firms now facing enforcement action for failing to complete their nominations, and the revelation that 1,200 nominees did not declare “potentially relevant issues” – including undisclosed criminal convictions, serious disciplinary sanctions and undeclared bankruptcy.

The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority will tomorrow be asked to confirm an outcomes-focused approach to implementing the referral fee ban, along with a commitment to develop guidance “as our knowledge of different schemes increases” – although this will fall short of ‘safe harbour’ advice.

Some barristers are worried that boycotting the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates will lead to their committing a criminal offence by practising without authorisation, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association has revealed. Meanwhile, the first wave of judicial training on the scheme has been successfully completed.