Solicitors

The solicitors’ training contract should be abolished and frontline regulators compelled to co-operate on standards of training for reserved activities, a legal think tank argues in a report published this week.

Concerns over a worsening diversity picture at the Bar have prompted the Bar Standards Board to consider making aspects of its guidelines on diversity mandatory. The news came as research published by the Law Society showed that significant obstacles still face women and ethnic minorities in accessing the upper reaches of the solicitors’ profession.

Growing student debt means the length of time would-be lawyers spend studying needs to shrink, the chairman of the Legal Services Board has declared. David Edmonds also floated the idea of adopting the accountants’ training model, in which professional training takes place during full-time employment, while appearing to throw cold water on the idea of aptitude testing for students before they begin postgraduate legal education.

The three biggest legal regulators have set out the terms of their two-year joint review of education and training. The review – being undertaken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards – will examine the educational requirements placed upon individuals entering the sector and their regulatory function.

Legal Services Board (LSB) chairman David Edmonds will tomorrow back a review of legal education and training but warn that he expects it to be far-reaching, Legal Futures has learned. However, we understand that the LSB had originally planned to conduct the review itself, but has been persuaded to let the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards take the lead under the LSB’s oversight.

Solicitors in Scotland could be banned from acting for both lender and borrower as the profession looks to hit back at firms being thrown off lender panels, it has emerged.

The study of ethics should become a core element of the law degree, a report commissioned by the Law Society has recommended. The aim should be “to stimulate students to reflect on the nature of legal ethics, to equip students to behave ethically and to enable them to play an active role in the formation of professional ethics”.

The government will push ahead with plans to take client account interest and apply it to the legal aid fund irrespective of the possible impact on clients and solicitors, an equalities impact assessment indicates.

The Legal Services Board is expected take over responsibility for overseeing the regulation of immigration advisers by the legal professional bodies from the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), starting in April 2011.

Solicitors could be struck off for failing to pay the interest they have made on client accounts to the government, under proposals released today. The interest would be used to bolster the legal aid fund after the Ministry of Justice today unveiled a package to cut as much as £440m from the legal aid budget. The Jackson reforms will be implemnted but with possible “refinements”.

The focus on law firms in the assigned risks pool has led to a significant fall in the number of other monitoring visits conducted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Legal Futures can report. The SRA says the move is an example of its shift towards risk-based regulation.

Mandatory quality assurance for criminal advocates is welcome but the scheme currently proposed by the legal profession falls short in several significant ways, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today. Among the problems are a failure to consider consumer needs, weaker standards than had been consulted on, and allowing advocates to choose which cases they are assessed on.

The number of solicitors has grown by nearly 50%, and the number of firms by a third, in the past decade, Legal Futures research has discovered. According to SRA figures, for the first time the number of solicitors on the roll has topped 150,000 (it is now 153,971), and the number of practising solicitors has gone over 120,000 (120,917).

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has launched an investigation into the impact of more borrowers and lenders having separate legal representation as lenders continue to restrict their panels, it has emerged. It has also given a cautious welcome to the Law Society’s new conveyancing quality scheme and sounded a warning over suggestions that the requirements of solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance will be relaxed.

Some 240 of the 336 law firms in the assigned risks pool (ARP) are new to the insurance safety net, with 10-20% of the total thought to pose a “serious risk”, it has emerged. Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) papers show that 30-60 firms are in the serious risk category and face immediate SRA investigations, with referrals for regulatory action to be made where appropriate.