News

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The director of communications, policy and research at the Electoral Commission is to become the new chief executive of the Legal Services Board.

The cost of regulation would “drop like a stone” if solicitors were not allowed to hold client money, the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority said yesterday.

The SSB Victims Support Group has expressed concern about the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority is conducting its investigation into the collapsed Sheffield law firm.

Litigation funding supports the public interest and access to justice but will remain niche in aiding consumers, according to major research which identified 44 cases in the last five years.

The proportion of people using a solicitor for their will has continued to fall and is now down to 50%, five percentage points lower than in 2019, a report has found.

Justice minister Mike Freer has admitted to MPs that the government “bit off more than we could chew” with its £1.3bn court modernisation programme.

The public continues to support law firms not operating in Russia, according to research that also shows how the Commercial Court has weathered a big drop-off in Russians litigating here.

The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint about marketing material sent by an employment law business that looked like it was from a public body.

Family legal aid is loss-making for almost half of providers, research has found, with those handling private, rather than public, law matters struggling the most.

A Norwich law firm has been fined £121,000 for failing for eight years to replace client money which it had wrongly paid out to beneficiaries of an estate.