Solicitors

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has ruled out reinstating the ban on referral fees and instead is proposing enhanced transparency, with different rules for different types of legal work, Legal Futures can exclusively reveal after obtaining LSB papers under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Law Society Council decided to reduce the practising certificate (PC) fee requested by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) from £460 to £428, Legal Futures can reveal. But it does not impact the SRA’s budget and so is unlikely to have repercussions for relations between the Law Society and SRA.

Conveyancers should be allowed to act for both seller and buyer far more regularly than is currently permitted, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. They should also be required to include non-optional costs in their upfront fees.

Solicitors facing disciplinary proceedings after 1 October will no longer be able to call on their indemnity insurance to pay their defence costs, after the Legal Services Board approved changes to the indemnity rules. The decision comes despite strong opposition from the Law Society.

Clients should be given the information they need to identify firms with poor compliance histories so that they “can punish them by voting with their feet”, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. It also called on the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce a leniency programme for solicitors who blow the whistle on misconduct in which they are involved with others.

Claims management companies have delivered access to justice, and are the symptom, not the cause, of an increase in personal injury claims, a major new report has concluded. It revealed that the number of CMCs has grown by 58% in less than two years.

Solicitors can now make more use of Chinese walls after changes to the Code of Conduct were waved through by the Legal Services Board. However, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned that few firms are able to set up compliant Chinese walls – known officially as information barriers – and so should treat them with “extreme caution”.

A new insurer today entered the professional indemnity market for small law firms, having taken over the run-off claims-handling function of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund.

The Legal Services Board is on a collision course with the Law Society and Bar Council after demanding that both introduce lay majorities on the boards of their regulatory arms sooner than planned, Legal Futures can reveal.

The Law Society has set aside £5 million to pay for the closure of the Legal Complaints Service (LCS), its 2009 annual report has revealed. The report also revealed that the society spent £600,000 in legal fees on its unsuccessful attempt under TUPE to force the new Office for Legal Complaints to take on LCS staff.

Why do people become lawyers? In my case, as I suspect for many others, it was largely because my parents thought it a good idea. Some may have watched too much LA Law or read too much Rumpole. Quite a few lawyers I know couldn’t think of anything better to do.

Experience is a greater predictor of whether solicitors will face regulatory action, not race, an in-depth study has concluded. However, research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority said that in some situations SRA processes compounded the level of disproportionality currently experienced by BME solicitors.

Plans to allow students to claim exemptions from the legal practice course (LPC) for the first time have been unveiled by the Solicitors Regulation Authority – although it will be for the LPC provider to decide whether to accept them.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority today announced a major crackdown on law firms in the assigned risks pool, with firms unable to exit the pool at the end of their term or to pay their premiums likely to be closed down.

Solicitors’ insurers are not entitled to obtain confidential and privileged documents from the Law Society on files where no claim has been made against their insured, the Court of Appeal has ruled.