Solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has closed down controversial Bolton law firm Asons shortly after it ceased trading and was sold to another practice, it emerged yesterday. Meanwhile, a set of accounts for the first six months of Asons’ current financial year indicated that it was turning around the previous year’s poor performance.

The Legal Services Board is to review the conduct of the Law Society since autumn 2014 to determine whether Chancery Lane interfered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s independence, it has emerged. The wide scope of the investigation indicates that the board will dig deep into the society’s internal workings.

There is a risk that the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s plans for education reform will do little to disrupt the privilege of students with access to funding and other advantages, according to an independent report commissioned by the regulator.

A respected solicitor who took £4m from her clients – and also stole Church of England cash in her role as registrar with the Diocese of Wakefield – has been jailed for seven years. Linda Box, who is 67, pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud, two of forgery and one of theft.

A solicitor who used and paid a struck-off solicitor in his practice, submitted false costs claims to defendant insurers and was also sanctioned by the Football Association for his work as a player’s agent, has accepted a £2,000 fine from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

For the first time, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has activated a suspended suspension, after a solicitor revealed he had breached a disciplinary order in the course of applying to have it varied. The SRA argued that if this matter did not lead to activation of a suspension, it was hard to envisage when it would.

Phil Shiner was prepared to do whatever it took to secure clients and high-profile cases, along with the “reputational and financial reward” that came with them, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal concluded in deciding to strike him off as a solicitor last month. Its full 78-page ruling was published yesterday and revealed the SRA is seeking £723,000 in costs.

The justice select committee has described the impact of Brexit on legal services as “a cause for concern, but not hyberbole”, in a report published today. MPs said that maintaining cross-border legal practice rights and access to “valuable regulations” on inter-state commercial law should be two of the four main justice aims for government negotiators.

A solicitor with nearly 25 years’ experience has been struck off for dishonestly using client funds to prop up his business and failing to pass on to an RTA client the £73,500 due to her, after a “perfect storm” of circumstances put his firm in difficulties.

A High Court has referred back to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal the case of two partners he found to have displayed “manifest incompetence” in accepting £573,000 lent to their law firm by the controversial Axiom Legal Financing Fund.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor who was convicted for conspiring to supply cocaine and sentenced to three years in prison, despite his plea for a second chance. He was himself an addict and claimed he was trying to rid himself of the drug when he supplied one gram to an undercover police officer.

A solicitor convicted of stalking her husband’s former lover has been fined £1,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. In what it described as “wholly exceptional circumstances”, the tribunal said that “the reputation of the profession is enhanced by some consideration of humanity”.

A law firm which was duped into paying away the £333,532 proceeds of a property sale after failing to confirm a client’s email changing their bank details – which turned out to be faked – has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The Treasury has rejected an argument by the Solicitors Regulation Authority that it needs full separation from the Law Society to avoid any interference in its operation of anti-money laundering rules. Instead it indicated that operational independence – which the regulator already has – was sufficient.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has rebuked and fined £2,000 a solicitor already found by the High Court to be in breach of an undertaking, rejecting the argument that this was an abuse of process.