Legal Executives

The chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has responded to strongly-worded criticisms this week from the Legal Services Board by the describing its report as “the best ever” received from the oversight regulator. However, Mr Philip admitted that there were parts of the report and performance review where the SRA had a “different opinion”.

The lack of independence between the legal regulators and representative bodies risks undermining the credibility of regulation and allows the likes of the Law Society and Bar Council to delay reforms that would benefit competition, the Legal Services Board said yesterday.

The Legal Services Board has strongly criticised the Solicitors Regulation Authority over failures in its enforcement work and IT systems – and also warned about the risk that the overhaul of the Handbook “may be too much” for firms and the regulator to cope with. However, the LSB said the legal regulators collectively had all made “substantial progress”.

Conveyancers may need to be placed under extra duties of care so as to reduce the risk of fraudulent changes being made to the Land Register, the Law Commission has suggested. A major review of the Land Registration Act 2002 also put forward ways the law could encourage the development of electronic conveyancing.

The battle for the future of legal regulation is set to move into high gear next week with publication of the government consultation on making regulators such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board fully independent of the representative bodies which technically oversee them.

A trainee legal executive has been fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for taking almost £24,000 from his law firm’s client account. BRM Solicitors said Joseph Aaron Cooper had betrayed its trust.

Many judges are not “advocacy trainers” and may produce “subjective” evaluations under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates scheme, solicitor-advocates have warned. The Solicitors’ Association of Higher Court Advocates said there was a danger that some judges would assess on the basis of how they would have done it.

Judges should be able to opt out of assessing advocates under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates if they believe it would be unfair, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. Despite a Supreme Court ruling in its favour last year, QASA is still to get off the ground.

An influential Conservative MP has said he is “very keen” to see how the legal regulators could work “much more closely together”. Alberto Costa is a solicitor and member of the justice select committee.

Setting up a new panel of criminal defence advocates could confuse the public, CILEx Regulation has warned. It said the legal regulators should control standards and quality.