Solicitors

A partner who misled personal injury clients and his firm to show the department “in the best possible financial light” has been fined by the SDT.

An immigration lawyer who “wrongly claimed” £800,000 from the Legal Aid Agency has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Solicitors convicted of harassment and assault are among those to have received rebukes of late from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

There is “some uncertainty” as to whether non-lawyer partners of ABSs can be banned from working in the profession, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has admitted.

A solicitor who sued the Lord Chancellor for £4.4m after his legal aid contract was taken away has been fined £4,000 by a disciplinary tribunal.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has made struck-off solicitor Alan Blacker bankrupt over unpaid costs. Mr Blacker gained a measure of notoriety for using the title ‘Lord Harley’.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has stuck to its guns on allowing solicitors to practise from unregulated firms and enabling freelance solicitors to do more than now.

The number of law firms closed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority rose by 35% last year to 50, but the number of solicitors struck off fell, it has emerged.

Four partners at a Birmingham law firm have been fined a total of £35,000 for failing to keep dealings with client money in order for almost six years.

Solicitors convicted separately of head-butting another parent at a children’s rugby match and making fraudulent expenses claims to the CPS have both been struck off.

More types of poor conduct by claimant solicitors in the holiday sickness market have been uncovered, their regulator has warned.

A struck-off solicitor called to give evidence over a will she drafted often said “the first thing that came into her without reflecting on whether it was correct”.

The Legal Services Board has approved new rules proposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority requiring law firms to publish prices for a range of consumer and business services.

QCs should not lose their designation unless they are excluded from the profession and even then not automatically, the Bar Council has said.

A solicitor has been fined £1,300 by the SRA for taking his fees from a rent deposit after the client switched firms, one of several sanctions handed out by the regulator.