Solicitors

Solicitors Regulation Authority proposals to exclude lender and other financial institution claims from the scope of compulsory professional indemnity insurance will be “massively damaging to the profession” and lead to more expensive and longer conveyancing transactions for the public, Law Society chief executive Des Hudson has warned.

Law firms and alternative business structures should not be allowed to dodge regulation by establishing separate businesses to handle unreserved work, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said this week. The panel also appeared to rebuke Co-operative Legal Services – whose stated intention is to be one of the first ABSs – for calling for freedom in how businesses choose to provide unreserved work.

In the second part of his examination of the regulatory issues arising out of outsourcing, Duncan Finlyson of Legal Futures Associate Lawyers Defence Group outlines the relevant provisions in the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2007.

The three main professional bodies have all set out their stalls against lawyers being “named and shamed” if found guilty by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) of providing an inadequate service. The Bar Council has this week joined the Law Society and Institute of Legal Executives in criticising the idea.

Seven law firms have joined the second wave of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) relationship management (RM) pilot. RM may be one of the ways the SRA supervises firms according to its assessment of the risks the firm poses as part of outcomes-focused regulation, which goes live in October.

Solicitors have had to cover £15m in unpaid premiums of law firms that have been in the assigned risks pool (ARP) during its first 10 years, it has emerged. Of that, £6.1m is for run-off cover for firms that closed without insurance, and the figures reveal that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has collected just £500,000 in run-off premiums since the ARP was set up in 2000.

The Legal Services Board is explicitly threatening the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards with using its formal enforcement powers for the first time over their quality assurance for advocates scheme, Legal Futures can reveal. The regulators have branded the move as neither “helpful nor necessary”.

Barristers going into competition with solicitors to offer litigation services could reduce costs and make services “more efficient for consumers through packaged delivery”, the voice of legal consumers has said. The Legal Services Consumer Panel also backed the Bar Standards Board as the sole regulator of advocacy services.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has slated the suggestion by the Legal Services Board that approved regulators should collect and publish all referral agreements between introducers and lawyers, which the SRA estimates run to many thousands.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board are set to launch a “legal services stakeholder network”, to give the public a direct say in how legal services are regulated, Legal Futures can reveal.

The Bar’s regulator has blasted the Legal Services Board for not doing enough to avoid the risk of abuse by solicitors of lawyer-to-lawyer referrals – and warned that they may fall foul of the 2010 Bribery Act.

The Legal Services Board is to measure the working of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal against key performance indicators, a move described by the tribunal as “wholly inappropriate”.

All workers at law firms and chambers will be asked whether they are straight, gay or bisexual, about their parents’ educational background and what kind of school they attended as part of the Legal Services Board’s push to improve transparency about diversity in the legal profession.

Law firms’ anti-risk measures are likely to be probed more thoroughly by insurers if the common professional indemnity insurance renewal date is abolished, according to a leading industry insider. He also revealed in detail a number of “creative accounting” techniques used by insurers to reduce their exposure to the assigned risks pool by declaring premiums that may be £60m less than actually received.

The regime for training and supporting solicitor-advocates is not fit for purpose, a major Law Society report leaked to Legal Futures has claimed. The report by Nick Smedley sets out a comprehensive new approach to advocacy, including a full-time course of two to six months for solicitors who want to gain higher rights, and creation of an Academy for Solicitor Advocates. Practitioners with higher rights would have a title such as “Fellow of the Solicitor Advocate Academy”.