Solicitors

The Legal Services Board yesterday expressed continuing concerns about the independence of the Solicitors Regulation Authority from the Law Society. This has led the LSB to issue a new statutory notice requiring the society to provide it with information.

Legal regulators from around the world have agreed to create an information-sharing network as a first step towards the eventual formation of a global regulators’ organisation.

The reservation of will-writing and estate administration should boost the amount of work and allow existing providers such as solicitors to become more competitive, the Legal Services Board said today as it laid out how the regime will work.

Hundreds of law firms that have yet to nominate their compliance officers could soon face enforcement action, the SRA has warned. Separately the SRA is to conduct visits to 100 random law firms to check on their compliance with equality and diversity rules, while more than 10,000 solicitors have registered their intention to join QASA.

A Solicitors Regulation Authority proposal to scrap the ban on solicitors referring clients to tied financial advisers presents a “disproportionate risk” to both lawyers and clients, the Law Society has argued.

The possibility of the Law Society and other representative bodies being cut off from any of the money raised by practising fees has been raised by a Legal Services Board call for an “open debate on the cost of regulation”.

Our latest round-up of news you need to know includes the SRA launching an investigation into the conduct of solicitors after the Hillsborough disaster, the latest ABS licences, PC renewal details, and a bid to ensure high standards of complaints handling among conveyancers.

A solicitor has successfully challenged a demand to stump up nearly £150,000 in unpaid assigned risks pool premiums. He was able to show that the ARP’s manager had not established that he was personally liable for the debt of the LLP in question.

The Law Society yesterday usurped the Solicitors Regulation Authority plans to announce details of this year’s practising certificate renewal exercise. The 2011 renewal exercise was dogged by delays and IT problems.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to review efforts to combat mortgage fraud, a move that will push back final approval of its draft conveyancing strategy to 2014 – more than two years later than first planned.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has brought in the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) to handle complaints against solicitor insolvency practitioners. It follows criticism by the Insolvency Service of the SRA.

All law firms judged to present a risk of financial instability are to be contacted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority by the end of this month, Legal Futures can reveal. However, it is urging firms facing financial difficulty to overcome their mistrust and contact them early.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to seek powers to levy automatic fines for breaches of its rules to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment caused by hundreds of law firms failing to nominate compliance officers on time.

It will be for law firms to work out if they are complying with the ban on referral fees in personal injury cases, with the law drafted in such a way to make some collective marketing schemes “vulnerable to being in breach”, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

The introduction of a leniency scheme for those who reveal misconduct at law firms and alternative business structures will today be debated by the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Co-operation could result in no action taking against the potential witness over their own wrongdoing.