The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been criticised in a Legal Services Board (LSB) report for its failures in its enforcement work and its IT systems, as part of a wider review of legal regulators.
Lost in translation – can regulators respond to the rise of in-house?
As the SRA prepares to overhaul its handbook, we ask whether its new focus on in-house will be enough to help tackle the ethical issues general counsel face.
‘There’s a serious danger of a regulator trying to regulate something that it doesn’t understand,’ says Kingfisher group general counsel (GC) and company secretary Clare Wardle. Her comment comes as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) works on another overhaul of its handbook, halfway through a two-year review that will end in 2017, a process that has clear plans to be more inclusive of the in-house profession.
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Partner fined after failing to report ‘serious financial difficulties’ to regulator
A former partner of now defunct firm Tracey Barlow Furniss & Co has admitted he failed to report his firm’s ‘serious financial difficulties’ to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), accepting a rebuke and over £2,000 in fines.
From Chancery Lane to Waterloo – it’s time for the Law Society’s levy to go
There is a reason that the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’ has echoed through history. The rally cry of the American revolution demonstrates a basic truth that institutions and figures of authority hitting up constituencies for money without broadly representing their interests are in the long run asking for trouble.
On that yardstick, the Law Society has been asking for trouble for many years and it looks like it has finally got it as the Conservative government threatens to finish the job Labour started with the Legal Services Act and end the body’s ability to levy fees on the profession.
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DLA Piper media partner West to go to SDT over sexist email exchange with Premier League boss
About 18 months after sexist email exchanges between DLA Piper partner Nick West and a client were leaked, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has confirmed that there is a case to answer, meaning West now faces a hearing in the SDT.
Bringing it in-house: SRA to review litigation panel as regulator assesses internal function
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), which is already keeping some firms busy with work as it bids for independence from the Law Society, has launched a review of its litigation panel amid a wider review of its own legal function.
‘This is going to blow up’: tensions rise between the Law Society and the SRA as regulator seeks formal split
The ongoing dispute between the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has escalated after a row broke out over whether the regulator should formally split from the representative at Chancery Lane.
‘Need to secure value for money and quality’: industry groups welcome competition probe into legal market
In a move welcomed by industry groups, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into the legal services market over concerns about the affordability and standards of legal services.
‘Slow evolution’: Government plans further shakeup of legal regulation to encourage alternative providers
The government is to kick off a new consultation in spring 2016, part of which will be on making legal services regulators independent from their representative bodies and lowering barriers to entry even further for non-legal businesses to offer legal services.
Free agents: SRA could allow solicitors to practise outside regulated firms
As part of yet another review of how it manages the profession, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is mulling a ‘fundamental shift away from prescriptive rules’ with a proposal to allow practising solicitors to give advice from unregulated firms.
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