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The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a study of the legal services sector for consumers and small businesses so as to examine “long-standing concerns” about affordability and standards of service. The CMA said concerns had also been raised about the “complexity of the current regulatory framework”.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has voiced “serious doubts” over whether a solicitor, aged 79 and “with almost 50 years of exemplary service”, should have been referred to it for prosecution. Reginald Hemmings told the tribunal he found the experience “extremely distressing”.

Simon Armitage, a sole practitioner jailed for four years in October for fraud, has been struck off in his absence by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Although the solicitor had wished to come off the roll voluntarily, it was “in the public interest” for his misconduct to be “aired before the tribunal”.

Solicitors should abandon the concept of “perfection” and concentrate instead on improving their performance, a City training chief has said. The legal learning leader at Hogan Lovells said the firm was one of the first big practices to opt into the new non-point based CPD regime introduced in April.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has again criticised the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority prosecuted a case against a solicitor, after deciding that a partner who had a “genuine but misguided” belief about the status of one of his employees had not acted dishonestly in what he told his insurer.