Tag Results
LSB hints at support for solicitors’ position in row with barristers over QASA
Friday, 16 March 2012The Legal Services Board has given the clearest hint yet that it is supporting the position of solicitors in the row over the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. Legal Futures also understands that the LSB is pushing the Bar Standards Board to accept a compromise.
Tags: bar standards board, ILEX Professional Standards, Legal Services Board, QASA, Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Barristers, Latest news, Legal Executives, Legal Services Board, Solicitors
COLP and COFA nomination process to begin “within six weeks”, says SRA
Thursday, 15 March 2012The form that allows law firms to nominate their compliance officers for legal practice and for finance and administration should go live in the next six weeks, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said yesterday, while also revealing some of the information it will require about them.
Tags: COFA, COLP, compliance officer for finance and administration, compliance officer for legal practice, Solicitors Accounts Rules, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Accounts rules, Latest news, Solicitors
Appeal court frees solicitor after quashing convictions for fraud and money laundering
Thursday, 15 March 2012The Court of Appeal yesterday quashed the conviction of a solicitor jailed for fraud and money laundering in £650,000 worth of property transactions. However, a conviction for perverting the course of justice – for selling a Lamborghini that was subject to a freezing order – was unaffected.
Tags: fraud, money laundering, mortgage fraud, Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Latest news, Solicitors
Review sets out “radical” options for reform of legal education and training
Tuesday, 13 March 2012More common training of would-be lawyers, sector-wide CPD, and scrapping the training contract and pupillage, are among the “more radical” options being considered by the Legal Education and Training Review, according to its first discussion paper, issued yesterday.
Tags: bar standards board, ILEX Professional Standards, legal education, legal education and training review, legal practice course, LPC, pupillage, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Barristers, hrtraining, Latest news, Legal Executives, Solicitors
A compliance plan: the Emperor's new clothes?
Monday, 12 March 2012Is a compliance plan a COLP’s need-to-have or simply a nice-to-have and, more to the point, what on earth is a compliance plan? Compliance plans are the Emperor’s New Clothes of the SRA regulatory regime. Everyone’s talking about them, but no-one wants to admit they can’t see them and they don’t know what they are. There’s a good reason for this – compliance plan requirements are virtually invisible in the SRA Handbook. Allison Wooddisse explains.
Tags: code of conduct, COFA, COLP, compliance, compliance officer for finance and administration, compliance officer for legal practice, Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA Handbook
Posted in Blog
10,000 solicitors miss PC renewal deadline as SRA begins "comprehensive review" of process
Thursday, 8 March 2012Practising certificates (PCs) continue to dominate news from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), with around 10,000 solicitors failing to meet last Friday’s deadline for renewal. The SRA has also begun a review of this year’s chaotic PC renewal exercise.
Tags: practising certificate fee, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Latest news, Solicitors
Barristers and solicitors at loggerheads over QASA
Monday, 5 March 2012Barristers and solicitors are at loggerheads over whether plea-only advocates need to undergo judicial evaluation as part of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. If a resolution cannot be found, then the whole scheme could fall apart.
Tags: bar standards board, Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, ILEX Professional Standards, Joint Advocacy Group, Law Society, QASA, Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates, Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Barristers, Latest news, Legal Executives, Solicitors
Bigger than ABSs?
Monday, 5 March 2012While alternative business structures are gaining all the headlines right now, something perhaps even more fundamental is going on this year: the Legal Education and Training Review. Many know it’s happening, but I suspect few quite understand how radically it could reshape the foundation of becoming a lawyer. I don’t think I did until last week, when I attended the first of a series of five seminars being run by the Legal Services Board, this one in association with the Legal Services Institute.
Tags: bar standards board, Barristers, ILEX Professional Standards, legal education, legal education and training review, legal practice course, licensed conveyancers, Solicitors, Solicitors Regulation Authority, will-writing
Posted in Blog
Lawyers2you targets London as fuss over A-board highlights advertising sensitivity
Friday, 2 March 2012Lawyers2you is to become the first legal network to take on London when it launches its first franchise in the east of the city shortly, Legal Futures can reveal. The news comes after it faced criticism in the press for an A-board it used in central Birmingham.
Tags: Solicitors Regulation Authority
Posted in Alternative business structures, Latest news, Market monitor, Marketing & PR
SRA agrees third version of Handbook in six months – with another one set for June
Friday, 2 March 2012The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority this week approved the third edition of the SRA Handbook since it went live last October, with a fourth one due before the end of June. The SRA said it recognised the disruption this would cause but argued that the updates have been unavoidable.
Tags: Alternative business structures, Law Society, Legal Services Act, Solicitors Code of Conduct, Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA Handbook
Posted in Alternative business structures, Latest news, Solicitors