solicitors

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has stuck to its guns on allowing solicitors to practise from unregulated firms and enabling freelance solicitors to do more than now.

The number of law firms closed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority rose by 35% last year to 50, but the number of solicitors struck off fell, it has emerged.

Four partners at a Birmingham law firm have been fined a total of £35,000 for failing to keep dealings with client money in order for almost six years.

Solicitors convicted separately of head-butting another parent at a children’s rugby match and making fraudulent expenses claims to the CPS have both been struck off.

More types of poor conduct by claimant solicitors in the holiday sickness market have been uncovered, their regulator has warned.

A struck-off solicitor called to give evidence over a will she drafted often said “the first thing that came into her without reflecting on whether it was correct”.

The Legal Services Board has approved new rules proposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority requiring law firms to publish prices for a range of consumer and business services.

QCs should not lose their designation unless they are excluded from the profession and even then not automatically, the Bar Council has said.

A solicitor has been fined £1,300 by the SRA for taking his fees from a rent deposit after the client switched firms, one of several sanctions handed out by the regulator.

A senior solicitor who sent offensive tweets about Islam, Catholicism and Judaism – and also retweeted some – has been suspended from practice for 18 months.