Solicitors

A partner at a leading law firm who did not inform the client whose will he was revising that he was in a personal relationship with one of the beneficiaries – herself an associate at the firm – and gave himself the power to grant her 11 times as much as she was due from the estate after the client died, has accepted his removal from the profession.

Law firms are being encouraged to get their act together now and come to terms with the new continuing professional development (CPD) regime for solicitors, which comes into force today. Firms can no longer choose to keep the old hours-based approach.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has made a rare costs order against the Solicitors Regulation Authority for having brought an “improper” prosecution against a law firm. It also expressed concern at how the regulator had ramped up the costs of the case by instructing leading counsel.

There are increasing reports of ‘touting’ by criminal defence law firms – where they use agents to approach potential clients, even if they already have representation – the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

Some universities will incorporate the first stage of the proposed Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) into their law degrees, the education and training director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has predicted. She said this would make the legal practice course redundant.

The Ministry of Justice has no intention of dropping its plans to separate the legal regulators from their representative bodies, it said yesterday as it unveiled reviews of how the Legal Services Board and Legal Ombudsman are operating.

The public is to be warned that solicitors are operating as “middlemen” to facilitate fraudulent high-yield investment schemes, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed. The SRA is to educate the public about the dangers of what it described in a draft warning notice it plans to distribute as “‘get rich quick’ scams”.

A London-based sports law firm that counts among its clients the tennis star Maria Sharapova and world champion cyclist Lizzie Armistead, has become an alternative business structure with the aim of bringing analysis of substances in-house. We also round up ABS news from Crawford Legal, Gateley, Express Solicitors and Redde.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has launched a passionate defence of the sole practitioners and small law firms which “currently fill the consumer gap at competitive prices”, following the “passing away” of legal aid. They should not be sacrificed in favour of allowing solicitors to practise from unregulated businesses, it said.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has rebuked and fined a male solicitor who made inappropriate sexual advances on a junior female member of staff. The former partner was fined £1,000 and also agreed to pay £300 costs and publication of the regulatory settlement agreement reached with the regulator.

A law firm and a solicitor have separately been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for acting where there was a conflict of interest. Other rebukes have been handed out to a firm that did not comply with Legal Ombudsman decisions and a solicitor who said he was a sole practitioner when he wasn’t.

Personal injury lawyers generally think the market is working well, but there are continuing concerns over claimant firms bringing ‘frivolous’ cases, as well as the use of low-level staff, research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found. It also described a market polarising between big and small firms.

The new codes of conduct being drafted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority will include guidance to protect solicitors practising in unregulated businesses, as well as law firm whistleblowers, it has emerged. SRA chief executive Paul Philip strongly defended the principle of allowing solicitors to practise from unregulated firms.

A solicitor who made withdrawals from a client’s bank accounts under powers of attorney that had been terminated, has accepted the maximum penalty that the Solicitors Regulation Authority can impose without referring him to a disciplinary tribunal.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a partner for dishonestly misappropriating funds from deceaseds’ estates and in one case overcharging by almost 1,000%. He admitted that the ledger given to the SRA was “a work of fiction” and that he had spent two or three days preparing it.