Solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to appeal to the High Court over the sanction imposed by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in a ground-breaking ruling last month on mental health and dishonesty, Legal Futures can reveal. The case involved fabricating and backdating documents, which is becoming increasingly common misconduct.

The government yesterday rejected criticism that its proposed ban on cold-calling did not go far enough and voted it into the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill. A minister said it was “convinced that the new clause will have the effect of making unwanted calls from claims management services unlawful”.

Claimant solicitors and defendants have come together to attack the government’s proposed ban on cold-calling, with the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers describing it as a “broken promise”. ABTA joined the criticism as it emerged that the addition of holiday sickness claims to the fixed recoverable costs scheme is scheduled to come into force in April.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has again decided against striking off a solicitor for proven dishonesty after it accepted that he was suffering from work-induced stress. The solicitor said one of his supervisors had described himself as being “like an abusive husband, always asking for forgiveness and saying it would be different”.

A solicitor has been struck off for conducting reserved activities when he was not entitled to do so and dishonestly misleading the regulator when challenged on it. After closing down his regulated firm, he set up an unregulated one but was found to have conducted both conveyancing and litigation.

The owner of a Manchester law firm which pursued personal injury cases without the consent of clients and also paid prohibited referral fees has been suspended for three years. His misconduct was “shocking and outrageous and had a significant adverse impact on the reputation of the profession”, according to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

A solicitor who “completely failed to recognise the significance of being a partner” in a law firm and the responsibility that involved has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said the Compensation Fund had received claims of £1.8m against his firm and “paid out in excess of £1.2m”.

A solicitor, paralegal, GP and claims management company owner are all set to face committal proceedings for contempt of court shortly over an alleged fraudulent personal injury claim. The High Court this week approved further grounds for the committal, taking the total to 40.

Partners in a former Stratford-upon-Avon law firm have been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after the finance co-ordinator in the accounts department took nearly £1.7m from client account. He eventually confessed in a resignation letter that said he had “gone above and beyond the remit of my role” by using client money to keep the firm going.

A north-west law firm has been rebuked after paying more than £200,000 to an unauthorised claims management company for personal injury referrals. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been dogged by questions over the effectiveness of its response to the ban on PI referral fees since it became law in 2013.

A sole practitioner who admitted dishonesty misappropriating £100,000 of client money could end up costing the compensation fund over £600,000, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has said. Her motive was funding her business, and she tried to conceal what she was doing by false accounting.

An unqualified fee-earner who stole £569,000 from one of the country’s biggest conveyancing firms, and worked at other firms under different names before being sent to prison, has been banned from working in the profession. Meanwhile, two trainee solicitors have been banned, both for dishonest conduct.

There is concern among solicitors that forcing firms to publish their costs will lead to ‘price baiting’, with some firms using artificially low prices to get clients through the door before increasing the costs later. The Solicitors Regulation Authority survey found widespread wariness about the idea of price publication.

Consumers select conveyancing solicitors mainly on recommendation, but clearer online information about price would help them make better choices, research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found. It also showed that 82% of consumers were very or fairly satisfied with the service they received.

A solicitor who took £1m from his client account to keep his firm afloat has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said that once Ian James Douglas had decided to embark on this strategy, the “downward spiral was rapid and devastating”.