Regulation

Problems with the Bar exams were far more extensive than previously reported, the Bar Standards Board admits as barristers warn that ‘pen and paper’ resits next month could breach equality law.

A law firm which surcharged more than 2,000 clients to help repay the loan it took out for a new case management system has been fined £30,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Legal advice privilege extends to communications with foreign lawyers working in-house even if they are not recognised or regulated as “professional lawyers”, the High Court has ruled.

A criminal law solicitor who used money from a jailed client for an appeal to stabilise his firm’s “precarious financial position” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The two partners of former immigration firm Malik Law Chambers have been adjudged bankrupt after petitions were filed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A “passionate, caring and in many respects competent” solicitor, whose firm got into a financial mess in part because of the accounting software she used, has escaped removal from practice.

Claims of race discrimination brought by a barrister against the Bar Standards Board as part of a decade-long dispute have been dismissed as time-barred by an employment tribunal.

The Competition and Markets Authority today announced a three-month review of the progress made in improving competition in the legal services sector for consumers and small businesses.

Well-known law firm Taylor Vinters has been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for failing to undertake proper money laundering checks on millions of pounds paid into its client account.

A solicitor has launched what he believes is the first legal consultancy in the UK devoted entirely to nanotech firms, the latest to use the rules that allow solicitors to practise from unregulated firms.

The “extremely drunk” senior partner of a London law firm has been fined £10,000 for touching a paralegal on the bottom and kissing her on the neck while sitting next to her in a bar.

The number of chambers delaying pupillages that were due to start this month or next is likely to have a knock-on effect on the supply of places until 2022, the Bar Standards Board said today.

The former managing partner of Baker McKenzie’s London office committed “an extraordinary abuse of position” by sexually harassing a junior fee-earner in his hotel room, the SDT has ruled.

A major Lincolnshire-based firm of accountants is moving beyond offering probate services by becoming an ABS to provide clients with a “wrap-around” service.

Most incidents of cybercrime suffered by law firms are due to individual errors and misunderstanding rather than systems being hacked, research by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found.