Solicitors

Efforts to encourage lawyers to make more suspicious activity reports are not succeeding, with the number of reports from the legal sector down 12% last year.

The Law Society has reminded solicitors that their duty to act in their client’s best interests can be trumped by other obligations when drafting non-disclosure agreements.

A solicitor who was the ‘go to’ lawyer for a gang of criminals because he would not ask too many questions about where their money came from has been jailed for seven years.

A solicitor who said his unauthorised firm was acting only for “family and friends” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, which said this made no difference.

An experienced solicitor escaped with an indefinite suspension after a tribunal accepted her plea that she had falsified a client’s sick note while suffering from mental ill-health.

A solicitor who took £100,000 from a fine wine scam on investors has been ordered to pay back less than a quarter of the sum or face more jail time.

A solicitor who broke the personal injury referral fee ban by paying an unlicensed claims management company over £200,000 in only six months has been fined.

The practice of making fraudulent legal aid claims was “endemic” at Blavo & Co, which at its height was one of the largest legal aid firms in the country, the High Court has found.

A solicitor convicted of tax fraud has been struck off, with a disciplinary tribunal rejecting his claim that he had been the victim of a police campaign to “get” him.

A solicitor who named his client as the defendant in a claim against the firm by an expert witness has been struck off. His motivation was to protect his firm’s reputation, a tribunal suggested.

Personal injury law firms are among those most at risk of fines under GDPR, while data subject access requests are increasingly being used as a litigation tactic, it has emerged.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal had refused a ‘no publicity’ application by a solicitor and deputy district judge convicted of fraud last year.

The government is “strongly” encouraging legal regulators to take action over lawyers who advise on the use of potentially unenforceable provisions in non-disclosure agreements.

A solicitor who lied about gifts he received from a client has been struck off, with a tribunal finding that he had embarked on an “elaborate deception” of his employer involving a fake invoice.

A struck-off solicitor who admitted stealing more than £700,000 from two vulnerable people while in practice has been jailed for four years.