Solicitors

The controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates may now be subject to a full pilot, it has emerged, at the same time as criminal barristers are up in arms at Legal Services Commission plans to use the scheme to end payments for QCs, which they say threatens its whole future.

Solicitors do not trust their regulator enough to raise concerns with it or think it will act if they do, the Law Society has claimed, offering to act as a formal conduit between the two. It also accused the Solicitors Regulation Authority of acting in a way that can seriously damage a solicitor’s reputation

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is formulating a whistleblowers’ charter and leniency scheme for those who reveal misconduct at law firms and alternative business structures, Legal Futures can report. Co-operation will be accepted as mitigation.

Compliance with “disproportionate” anti-money laundering rules costs the largest law firms as much as £1.3m each a year, the Law Society has claimed. Responding to a Treasury consultation, the society backed the option of abolishing all criminal sanctions under the 2007 Money Laundering Regulations.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has welcomed the suspension of a solicitor who failed to pay his assigned risks pool premium as it vowed to step up enforcement efforts against other such firms with the end of the indemnity year looming.

Frank Maher, a partner at Liverpool law firm Legal Risk LLP, outlines the new requirements on law firms to appoint compliance officers and the difficult issues they raise for practices in choosing who to appoint and the extent of the role.

Law firms will this year have to give the Solicitors Regulation Authority a detailed breakdown of the number and type of complaints they have received in the past 12 months, as part of the process of renewing their authorisation.

The benefits of outcomes-focused regulation could be thrown away if the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) fails to provide “safe harbour” advice on how law firms plan to comply with the new rules, and transparency on how it will deal with breaches, the Law Society has warned.

Law firms are not doing enough to train staff in risk and compliance matters, a leading expert on partnerships has warned – adding that practices must “get their houses in order by October 2011” to be ready for the new regulatory requirements.

The value of compensation claims lodged as a result of dishonesty and other default by solicitors now tops £200m – more than four times the amount just two years ago – new figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority have revealed.

Two solicitors sanctioned today by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for sending intimidating letters to individuals they accused of illegal file-sharing are set to appeal. They were fined £20,000 each and suspended from practising for three months after all six allegations against them were proven.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has suspended its policy of increasing the minimum salary for trainee solicitors for the second year running, a move reluctantly accepted by the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division.

The Bar Council is taking leading counsel’s advice on whether referral fees amount to bribes under the Bribery Act 2010 ahead of possibly promoting an amendment to the legal aid bill to ban them, chairman Peter Lodder QC has revealed.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a formal investigation into the role of solicitors in events surrounding the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Meanwhile, the Law Society has expressed “grave concern” after claims by solicitors that their phones may have been hacked by the News of the World.

Size, claims record and changes to the number of fee-earners are the factors that influence law firms’ professional indemnity insurance premiums, not practice area or ethnicity, Law Society research has found. A review of the 2010 renewal season found that smaller firms found their premiums going up the most, as did those with a claims history in the previous 12 months.