News

---

It would be wrong to assume that it is “inherently more improbable” that a professional person will be dishonest than anyone else, the High Court has said. In his ruling, HHJ Saffman said the sole practitioner involved had misrepresented “the true position” in an attendance note.

Judges should be able to opt out of assessing advocates under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates if they believe it would be unfair, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. Despite a Supreme Court ruling in its favour last year, QASA is still to get off the ground.

A sole practitioner who made a “conscious choice to prop up her practice with client funds” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Harvinder McKibbin told the tribunal that “as a true sole practitioner, matters had become a bit too much being on my own with no support”.

More than three quarters of general counsel lack separate budgets for process and technology services, despite exactly the same percentage identifying a “compelling need” for them, a survey has found. “To have a compelling need, but have no budgetary control is potentially ‘creek, canoe, no paddle’ territory”, it said.

A dual-qualified employment lawyer, struck off as a solicitor last year for deceiving clients, has been disbarred for his “persistent dishonesty”. The Bar Standards Board said Jean Etienne Attala attempted to cover up the fact employment claims he was handling had been struck out.

An extraordinary war of words between the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) stepped up yesterday after the regulator was accused of “seemingly seeking to undermine” Chancery Lane. The society said comments by the SRA’s leadership this week were “perhaps… an indication of the lack of value our regulator places on our profession”.

Three solicitors from East London have been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for failing to secure or check that indemnity insurance was in place for their firm, and continuing to accept new clients when they should have been closing it down.

The Law Society chief executive has said complaints that the behaviour of her former employer, the NHS Litigation Authority, drive up legal costs are not accurate. In the third and final part of our interview with Catherine Dixon, she also outlined her ambition to make the Law Society more member focused.

The Law Society’s share of the Practising Certificate fee should be repaid to solicitors if the Solicitors Regulation Authority becomes fully independent, the regulator’s chief executive has said. Paul Philip said the society’s share was around £35m or £250 for each solicitor.

The AA has shut its alternative business structure, AA Law, to new clients, it has emerged. The motoring giant said: “Following a strategic review the AA decided that the level of customers it was introducing did not justify the maintenance of a standalone business.”