Solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority will next month launch its own version of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, chairman Charles Plant announced yesterday at the official opening of the authority’s new headquarters in Birmingham.

Simply being a solicitor “is not enough” in the new legal market, but by raising standards further through accreditation schemes and using their brand recognition, solicitors can preserve a dominant market share, the Law Society’s chief executive has insisted.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority will have a lay majority for the first time from January 2013 – the last frontline legal regulator to comply with internal governance rules that require it. Meanwhile, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers has named an adviser to the Clementi review as its new CEO.

There are too many solicitors in England and Wales “who are simply not good enough”, the chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority claimed yesterday. He told the 500 firms yet to nominate COLPs that “enough is enough” – they face having their right to practise withdrawn.

Joint ventures between solicitors and insurance companies as alternative business structures which enables insurers to take in income what they would have received in referral fees will not be caught by the upcoming ban, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed last week.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is under pressure to extend its April 2013 deadline for legal disciplinary partnerships with non-lawyer partners to become alternative business structures, after the Legal Services Board said it was “unlikely” to insist on it before 2014.

Inaccurate statistics published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over the past six months have painted a worse picture of its handling of alternative business structure applications than the reality, it has emerged. However, there are still around 150 applications in the system.

The regulation of will-writing and estate administration needs to be drawn widely to ensure that the referral fee culture that has prevailed in personal injury does not emerge in private client work, the Law Society has warned.

Greater competition for business has led to a small fall in the amount of money solicitors paid for their basic professional indemnity cover this year, figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority show. New entrants captured more than 10% of the market.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has insisted that its online practising certificate renewal system is working normally, despite a technical hitch occurring one day after the applications process opened last week.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is overly aggressive, unaccountable, and is failing to differentiate between deliberate dishonesty and human errors of judgement, according to leading regulatory solicitor Andrew Hopper QC.

The 2012 practising certificate renewal exercise has gone live today with an acknowledgement from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) that there will be “glitches”. Separately the SRA has published its long-awaited consultation on introducing a leniency scheme for law firm whistleblowers.

The government has rejected the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s bid to increase the amount it can fine law firms from £2,000 to £250m, Legal Futures can reveal. The SRA had wanted its powers to penalise ‘traditional’ firms to match those it already has for ABSs.

A solicitor who was struck off in his absence has had his challenge to the decision thrown out by the High Court. Mr Justice Foskett warned that those who fail to attend Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearings do so at their own peril.

It will be for personal injury solicitors to convince the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) that they are not paying referral fees once the ban comes into force, it emerged today as the SRA published its long-awaited consultation on how it will implement the ban.