Solicitors

Individual practising fee levels for 2019/20 should remain at the same level as the current year, with Compensation Fund contributions falling, the board of the SRA has decided.

The former head of private client at London firm Kingsley Napley has been fined £15,000 for transferring over £1.5m from the estate of a wealthy foreign national to his widow when he should not have.

Disgruntled clients are more likely to target law firms with “deep pockets” for negligence claims than underinsured freelance solicitors, an expert in law firm regulation has warned.

The impersonation of lawyers to commit advance fee frauds has been added to the list of large-scale cyber-attacks from which the National Cyber Security Centre is trying to protect the public.

A London solicitor has been fined £2,500 for accidentally submitting duplicate receipts for taxis to his top-100 law firm, amounting to just £200. He blamed the errors on the long hours he was working.

There is a “huge amount of interest” among lawyers in becoming freelance solicitors under the new SRA rules, but they have been warned not to hand in their notice just yet.

A sole practitioner described by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as the “perfect target” for the promoters of dubious investment schemes has been struck off.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has criticised legal regulators’ continuing “resistance” to publishing complaints data about the lawyers they oversee.

The immigration regulator has expressed its “deep concern” at the rules that will allow practising solicitors to operate from unregulated businesses.

A struck-off solicitor made bankrupt by the Solicitors Regulation Authority because he owes it nearly £150,000 has agreed to a further nine years of bankruptcy restrictions.