Compliance & Regulation

Major changes to the way law firms hold client money, including not retaining interest and restricting the collection of fees in advance, were proposed yesterday by the SRA.

There are “reasons to be cautious” around the Solicitors Regulation Authority becoming more involved when law firms go through mergers and acquisitions, it said yesterday.

The 50/50 split between individual solicitors and firms in their funding of the SRA Compensation Fund should be changed to 70/30, the regulator has recommended.

The leading figure on legal ethics in the UK has called for the creation of an independent commission charged with improving “honesty, integrity and effectiveness in the use of law”.

A direct access barrister who impermissibly held a divorce client’s money and then did not pay all of it back has been suspended for 18 months by a disciplinary tribunal.

Barristers are wrongly stating that their work is covered by the money laundering regulations in their annual declarations to the Bar Standards Board, it has emerged.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has issued fines totalling £57,000 to eight more law firms for failures in their anti-money laundering controls.

A judge has condemned a solicitor for “the worst example of tampering with a file of papers that I have ever encountered” in reducing a bill claimed at nearly £260,000 to zero.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was right to strike off a solicitor who took part in a fraudulent personal injury claim, even though he was not the instigator, the High Court has ruled.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has dismissed allegations of misconduct against two high-profile solicitors over their handling of volume financial mis-selling claims.

Two leading employment law silks have clashed over the new, proactive equality duty proposed by the Bar Standards Board, disagreeing on how much of an impact it will have on barristers.

A tribunal has rejected an appeal from an immigration adviser and firm whose registration was cancelled for breaches of the OISC code that were “as extensive as they were serious”.

A solicitor who “abandoned” his law firm, leaving his office “in a chaotic state” with piles of letters thrown away as a fire hazard by neighbouring tenant, has been struck off.

A poll of law firms has found almost complete opposition to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s idea of preventing them from holding client money.

A solicitor who acted for lenders in conveyancing transactions without telling them he was also acting for himself and family members has been fined £12,500.