Compliance & Regulation

An accounts manager who tried to remove her firm’s partners from the roll of solicitors has been barred from working for law firms, as has a bookkeeper who was double-paid for nine months.

A judge is to consider whether a firm of accountants discriminated against a company owned by a non-sanctioned Russian by refusing to take it on as a client.

The Law Society has said it would be “inclined to support” any bid by the Legal Ombudsman to secure legislation which would allow it to outsource complaints handling.

A solicitor who was unaware that the rules had changed so that she could not handle friends and family’s conveyancing for free without insurance has been fined.

The High Court has rejected a barrister’s bid for an order requiring the Liberal Democrats to disclose the identities of people who made anonymous complaints about her.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has handed out the first fixed penalty fine for a law firm’s failure to submit its workforce diversity data within the deadline.

The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by a former solicitor jailed more than four years ago for false accounting at his law firm.

The High Court has refused to intervene in a dispute over the counsel for a claimant having previously been on the record for the defendants.

The High Court has dismissed an appeal against a decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to clear former Law Society president David Greene of lying to the county court.

A former equity partner at Thompsons has agreed to remove himself from the roll after admitting he “recklessly” misled it about the intimate nature of his relationship with a colleague.

The SDT has permitted a solicitor it indefinitely suspended 15 years ago to return to practise after he provided “full and comprehensive evidence of training in property law”.

Gray’s Inn has admitted as a student member a man who is facing a criminal prosecution in Greece over refugee rescue work he did as a volunteer in Greece.

The public finds different regulators for different part of the legal profession confusing and backs the Solicitors Regulation Authority taking oversight of chartered legal executives.

The Legal Services Board has retained a Northern Irish law firm to assist with its review of regulatory events leading up to the SRA’s intervention into Axiom Ince.

Barristers are facing a 9.5% increase in the cost of their practising certificates next year, reduced from 13.5% with the Bar Council again planning to use its reserves to mitigate the increase.