Solicitors

A senior solicitor who did a Ku Klux Klan impersonation at his Black secretary and repeatedly groped her bottom has been fined and urged to undertake diversity training.

A pro-Beijing Hong Kong politician and lawyer, who is also qualified here, is set to face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over allegations that he said pro-independence supporters should be killed.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has taken the unusual step of making a costs order against the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the “grave errors” it made in a case it eventually had to withdraw.

A personal injury lawyer who inflated costs, put false information before a court, misled her insurer and “wrecked lives” has been struck off.

Solicitors and accountants are at odds over whether the new economic crime levy should be calculated by reference to their income or the number of suspicious activity reports they made.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is applying for charitable status as part of becoming a distinct legal entity within the Law Society Group, it has emerged.

The rules on price transparency are dispelling consumers’ pre-conceptions that legal services are unaffordable and many are now shopping around online, new research has claimed.

Solicitors are to be balloted on changes to the make-up of Law Society council and limits on how long members can sit on it, at a cost of about £30,000, following a divided AGM yesterday.

Solicitors are concerned that some new legal technology they buy does not take into account their professional rules and ethical duties because lawtech firms are “not speaking the same language”.

The Law Society and SRA need to do more to show that they take on board what solicitors have to say about the cost of practising, the Legal Services Board has warned.

A limit of 12 years on the period served by Law Society council members is “essential” to ensure the body “robustly represents the diverse profession of solicitors”, the society’s AGM will hear next week.

Bonuses for managers could be made contingent on improvements in social mobility and the representation of minority ethnic people in law firms, it was suggested yesterday.

The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme is a “market barrier”, blocking entry to non-solicitor law firms, the Competition and Markets Authority has been told.

One of the oldest legal advice centres in the country has been given a boost by taking advantage of the new path to qualifying as a solicitor by employing six apprentices.

A “manifestly incompetent” partner, whose “neglect and carelessness” led to a shortage in her law firm’s client account of £214,000, has been suspended for 18 months.