Solicitors

A law firm partner who asked if it was acceptable to call a gay trainee solicitor a “poofter” – and repeated the question to the trainee – has been fined £4,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Progress by the legal regulators in understanding and tackling ongoing inequalities in the profession is “too slow” and lacks “strategic direction”, the Legal Services Board (LSB) has said. The oversight regulator said there were “fundamental shortcomings” in the collection of… Read More

A leading general counsel has attacked the assumption that in-house lawyers “leave their morals at the door” when they join their companies.

City giant Herbert Smith Freehills either compromised its independence or provided incompetent advice in its work for Lloyds Banking Group on the Reading scandal, a group of MPs and peers has claimed.

The emphasis on increasing the range and choice of legal training in the Solicitors Qualifying Examination could help remove the blockage to social mobility in the profession.

Solicitors handling immigration work can only do so from organisations overseen by a legal regulator or the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to launch a review of its approach to solicitors’ continuing competence, amid calls for spot checks or accreditation schemes to reassure consumers.

A legal assistant who lied about passing his legal executive exams so that his law firm employer would reimburse the course fees has been banned from working in the solicitors’ profession.

A solicitor who amended a client’s form of authority when he could not contact her and then sent it to her former employer – not knowing she had died – has been struck off for dishonesty.

An economist, a senior in-house lawyer and the head of one of the Big Four’s alternative business structures have been named on a panel created to advise the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

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.

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.