Regulation

A drunken barrister who threatened a fellow member of chambers in a bid to have them accede to a tenancy application has been reprimanded by a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

The head of a law firm who said she was lied to by a consultant solicitor, who paid £2.25m of property sale proceeds to a third party as part of a pattern of flagrant misconduct, has accepted a rebuke.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has agreed to extend by a year the use of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund to covers claims made after firms’ run-off cover expires.

A set of chambers in Birmingham, post Covid-19, is using unused floors in its offices to create a supported workspace for freelance solicitors, Legal Futures can reveal.

The quality of legal help for suspects in police custody has “suffered significantly” due to Covid-19 amid concerns over confidentiality and restrictions on lawyers talking to clients, a new report has found.

Online invigilators for the Bar exams taking place in August have been trained to differentiate between candidates looking around naturally and trying to read hidden notes, students have been warned.

A solicitor was kept in the dark by an experienced bookkeeper about improper transfers she was making from client to office account to keep the firm afloat, a tribunal has heard.

A solicitor whose firm received over £530,000 into its client account from an unknown third party, “sat on it” because “we just didn’t know” what to do, a tribunal has heard.

Workers from disadvantaged backgrounds are being left behind by the apprenticeship system, including in the law, with numbers slumping by more than a third since the apprenticeship levy was introduced.

A director of a former London law firm who admitted fabricating grants of probate and using client money to buy jewellery has been struck off.