Solicitors

Will-writing and estate administration should become reserved legal activities, the Legal Services Board has recommended. The long-awaited conclusions of its statutory investigation also highlighted the need to improve standards among regulated providers like solicitors.

Professional indemnity insurers will have to disclose their credit ratings to solicitors under plans to be approved by the SRA next month. However, it is to drop the requirement that insurers give policyholders a month’s notice of their intention not to renew cover.

The Legal Services Board is to examine whether ‘general legal advice’ given to consumers should be regulated, it announced today, but has rejected the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s call for all solicitor-type services to be reserved.

Law firms will be able to start nominating the compliance officers for legal practice and for finance and administration at the end of May – but the Solicitors Regulation Authority has admitted they may not all be approved by the start-date of 31 October.

The Law Society is to pilot an initiative that will provide advice to compliance officers for legal practice (COLPs) and then stand by the COLP if it is then challenged by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Deteriorating standards of criminal advocacy are having an impact on the administration of justice – with solicitor-advocates to blame, a Bar Standards Board survey has claimed.

Law firms need to be alert to increased risks of being targeted by fraudsters and money launderers during the London Olympics, the Law Society has warned. Issues include fake passports, sham disputes and visits by foreign politically exposed persons.

An 11-man working party will meet for the first time today to advise on how to introduce contingency fees for court work in England and Wales. The working party has been set up by the Civil Justice Council.

Law firms should not appoint the lawyer who handles their indemnity insurance as the compliance officer for legal practice (COLP) or risk discouraging lawyers from owning up to their mistakes, a leading City solicitor has advised.

Law firms need to establish policies on whistleblowing and the interest they pay to clients, according to a leading regulatory solicitor. Other key issues troubling firms include preparing a business plan and compliance with provisions on outsourcing.

The prospect of trainee solicitors claiming housing benefit and taking on second jobs because the minimum salary has been scrapped “is not the type of image that befits the profession”, the Law Society has claimed.

The Legal Services Board should have its budget slashed so as to rein in its ambitions to move beyond a supervisory role, the Law Society has claimed. However, the SRA, CILEx and Council for Licensed Conveyancers have been more measured in their criticism.

City law firms facing conflict issues overseas should apply the rules that apply in the relevant jurisdiction, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has suggested. Meanwhile, the SRA and the Law Society of Scotland have begun discussions on an intra-UK regulatory regime.

A solicitor heavily involved with failed claims handler The Accident Group (TAG) has lost his appeal against a High Court decision to strike him off. Anthony Dennison had initially just been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Law firms recruiting partners must now seek the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s approval prior to appointment, it has confirmed. However, it is still unable to confirm when the process will begin for firms to nominate their COLP and COFA.