Solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board have begun work on creating an online “virtual community” for consumers known as “Legally Speaking”. The news comes as we can reveal the Legal Services Consumer Panel has escaped the “bonfire of the quangos” – just as the panel’s chairwoman is stepping down.

The growth of separate representation of lender and borrower in residential property deals has prompted the Council of Mortgage Lenders to draft instructions for conveyancers acting solely for lenders. The move has been welcomed by a leading body representing conveyancers.

A single regulator for all legal services is “logical and plausible”, but not inevitable, a report for the Legal Services Board has concluded. Former Ministry of Justice official Nick Smedley argued that the existence of multiple regulators “focused on the differences of individual practitioners” is unlikely to be relevant in a post-alternative business structures market.

A potential new professional indemnity insurer has blamed the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s failure to tackle the market’s problems more quickly as the reason it will not be offering cover to law firms this year.

Magistrates’ court advocates who choose an assessment centre route to progress under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) could pay as much as 15 times more than those who undergo judicial evaluation.

The Legal Services Board is to recommend to the Lord Chancellor that the Law Society – through the Solicitors Regulation Authority – become an alternative business structure licensing authority. However, there has been a disagreement over the separate business rule.

The Legal Services Board is to reduce its funding call on the legal profession after coming in under-budget for the 2010/11 financial year. The news comes as the Law Society revealed a £57m surplus for 2010 and that chief executive Des Hudson enjoyed a 14% pay rise.

Bar students are set to become the first group offered exemptions from parts of the legal practice course (LPC), it has emerged. However, LPC providers will not be required to offer a discount on fees. The move has been driven by changes to the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme.

There are “significant risks” for law firms offering gifts, entertainment and to pay for expenses as a result of the Bribery Act 2010, the Law Society has warned. While referral fees should not fall foul of the Act, solicitors need to be aware of whether their introducers are behaving in a way that might.

The Treasury is set to abolish more than two dozen money laundering offences that can penalise lawyers for minor rule breaches, it has confirmed, but they could be replaced with extra powers for regulators. Very small businesses could even be exempted from the rules altogether.

The Law Society is wrong to suggest there is no evidence of a quality problem in criminal advocacy – according to one of the academics who produced it. Professor Richard Moorhead said there were failures “unparalleled in any assessment of lawyer quality in which I have been involved”.

The Law Society has launched what appears to be a last-ditch bid to persuade the Legal Services Board to scrap the proposed scheme to assess the quality of criminal advocacy, saying there is no evidence to support the assertion that standards have fallen.

Offering would-be solicitors – and particularly paralegals – a route to qualification that does not require a training contract may not be the way to reduce barriers to access to the profession, new research has suggested.

Regulation will cost solicitors 22% less this year, figures released by the Solicitors Regulation Authority have revealed. However, contributions to the compensation fund are set to soar – from £10 to £60 for individuals and £120 to £772 for firms.

The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority today called for talks with a senior judge over concerns about the role of judges in assessing the quality of criminal law advocates.