Solicitors

A solicitor who received a caution for assault by beating a female family member has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. It accepted the conduct was “out of character”.

Legal professional privilege was waived by the liquidators of a company when they released a file to a litigant to help her sue her law firm for negligence, the High Court has ruled.

A solicitor who twice misled a potential employer into believing he was still in a job – when in fact he had been sacked six months earlier – has been suspended indefinitely.

Firms getting into new areas of work because of the impact of Covid, along with handling funds generated through the legal sale of cannabis abroad, are among emerging money laundering risks.

The possibility of negative interest rates moved a step closer yesterday amid continuing uncertainty over whether law firms could pass on to clients the cost of holding their money.

The managing director of the latest law firm to become an employee ownership trust has said the biggest barrier is the “ignorance” of solicitors.

A solicitor whose “reckless mismanagement” of her law firm’s finances damaged the profession’s reputation has been struck off, and her COFA banned for “manifest incompetence”.

A solicitor who lied to a lender, a client, his law firm and the Land Registry to cover up the lack of progress made on his clients’ matters – but blamed his secretary – has been struck off.

New technologies such as biometrics, machine learning and artificial intelligence can now form part of the anti-money laundering armoury, law firms have been told.

A solicitor who was jailed for four years for money laundering offences has been readmitted to the roll after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found he had been “totally rehabilitated”.

A law firm which did the conveyancing work on two failed off-plan housing developments was not operating an unregulated collective investment scheme, the High Court has ruled.

The Legal Services Board has introduced new rules to ensure legal regulators explain more clearly how they spend the money they raise through the compulsory levies on lawyers.

A solicitor who lied to her client about the progress of her case and then to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about it, and later to professional indemnity insurers, has been struck off.

Three regulators are joining forces to pilot ways for law firms to engage better with comparison websites and online review platforms, starting with conveyancing and employment work.

A solicitor who ‘witnessed’ the signatures of a client’s father that were already on property documents, without checking their authenticity, has been fined £20,000.