Solicitors

A law firm that topped the table for holiday sickness claims is among 27 claimant firms being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, it has emerged. A leading defendant solicitor said he was surprised to see the firm heading the list, because it was “not one we had pretty much ever heard of”.

A criminal defence solicitor has been struck off for dishonestly claiming £7,000 from the legal aid fund and falsifying documents to cover up his mistakes in double-booking advocates – at a time when he said he was suffering from severe depression which led him to drink and take un-prescribed drugs.

An office manager jailed last year for stealing £413,000 from a Newcastle law firm can only pay back £58,000 to its partners, it emerged in court yesterday. Meanwhile, the Crown Court has appointed a receiver to recover a ‘tainted gift’ received by the wife of a jailed solicitor who plundered £1.8m from the estates of dead clients.

The Legal Services Board has handed out a public censure for the first time, after finding that the Law Society had governance arrangements in place that could have interfered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Law Society’s actions undermined “the public interest in effective regulation of legal services”.

A sole practitioner who claimed more than twice the criminal costs he was entitled to after successfully defending a client has been fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. He said he had “very little experience of criminal defence work”.

The High Court has rejected the appeal of a solicitor struck off for his involvement with the failed Axiom Legal Financing Fund after it found the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was entitled to proceed with hearing the case in his absence. It found his claims about his ill-health were really an attempt to stop the proceedings altogether.

Trainee solicitors at the top-paying firms receive more than three times those at the bottom, while the pay gap in earnings of female and black trainees has widened since the minimum salary was scrapped, a survey has found.

A solicitor who acted for jailed UKIP MEP Ashley Mote, jailed in 2015 for fraudulently claiming £400,000 in European Parliament expenses, has failed to overturn his striking off at the High Court. He had been struck off after allowing around £60,000 of European Parliament funds to be used for various legal matters Mr Mote was facing which did not relate to his work as an MEP.

A former manager of Cheshire firm Bott & Co’s flight delay team has been fined £4,000 by the Solicitor Regulation Authority for lying to clients. He was also banned from owning or working in ABSs, in a rare use of the power in section 99 of the Legal Services Act 2007.

A partner who made a series of improper withdrawals from law firms’ client accounts totalling almost £2m has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Though he had used money from his father-in-law’s client account to pay his own tax bill, in general the tribunal could not identify his motivation.

The former partner whose conduct in a dubious investment scheme led to the record £500,000 fine for US law firm Locke Lord last year has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Multiple allegations against Jonathan Denton – including that he acted dishonestly – were found proven and it emerged that he is now also facing criminal charges.

A young solicitor who “panicked” has been suspended for six months for lending his mobile to a criminal suspect who used it to silence a witness, and then denying it when questioned by police. Mohammed Abid’s barrister said he had made a “grave unforgivable error… he was a rabbit in headlights”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the solicitors it prosecutes have been warned that disciplinary tribunals are not there to rubber-stamp any agreed outcome they reach to avoid a full hearing. There have been examples in recent months of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal rejecting agreed outcomes to proceedings

Headbutting a litigant-in-person in the High Court may have been a “moment of madness” but the solicitor involved could not stay in the profession, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled. He argued that the headbutt, which left his victim with a broken nose, was “temporary insanity” which should result in a suspension.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority should do more to combat a “quite alarming” lack of understanding of equality laws, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons women and equalities select committee has said during a parliamentary debate on public legal education.