All Regulation and compliance articles – Page 151
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Opinion
Embracing compliance - like going to the gym
Much has been said and reported about the cost of regulatory compliance, but not so much about the benefits of compliance as a driver of quality and competitive advantage through creating better processes and controls. The SRA’s report Attitudes to regulation and compliance in legal services showed that the majority ...
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News
Healthcheck detects public unease at bar regulator 'bias'
Complainants to the Bar Standards Board have accused the regulator of bias in favour of barristers as dissatisfaction grows about transparency and openness. The BSB’s yearly healthcheck survey found increasing public unease about its complaints process, despite the number of complaints falling in the past year. At the board’s monthly ...
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OpinionGovernment bank sanction plans are flawed
The Treasury has accepted the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards
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News
SRA approves £50-£350 charge scale for advocacy accreditation
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has approved the fees that solicitors will be required to pay for accreditation under the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA). Fees are set for the four accreditation levels and solicitors will have to make payment on registration, on progression and when seeking reaccreditation. To ...
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OpinionCounting the cost of interventions
The cost of law firm failures is being felt across the solicitors’ profession. The Gazette reported recently that the unprecedented bill for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervening in failing firms means that we will all have to pay an extra £23 each towards the compensation fund in the coming ...
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News
Solicitors Regulation Authority shuts two firms
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has closed immigration firm Mulberry Finch Limited and Gloucestershire practice Peter Stafford Eales. The SRA said that Mulberry Finch, based in Conduit Street, London, failed to comply with the SRA Principles, the Code of Conduct and Accounts Rules. Peter Stafford Eales, of Turnpike Gate, Gloucestershire, was ...
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Opinion
Should we allow non-graduate entry?
SRA chair Charles Plant says there should be a return to non-graduate entry to the profession. Over the years I have thought this too. After all, I am a five-year man myself. At the end of this month I retire and my views have changed. The law too has changed, ...
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News
Next year's PC fees agreed today – full details
Individual solicitors will be shielded from significant fee increases next year but most firms will pay more. The Law Society today agreed that its net funding requirement for 2014 will be £116.8m, an increase from £103.5m the previous year. The funds cover the Society, Solicitors Regulation Authority and external bodies ...
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News
SRA set to agree major increase in fining powers
Proposals for significant increases in the fining powers of the Solicitors Regulation Authority are set to be agreed this week. The SRA regulatory risk committee will meet tomorrow to recommend new fining guidelines of between £500 and £50,000 for most firms and individuals. For firms with domestic turnover of more ...
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Opinion
Speedier ABS processing
In response to Adam Entwistle's letter which was critical of the time taken by the SRA to process an ABS licensing application, I would like to reassure potential applicants that this has speeded up significantly since we introduced changes earlier this year. We listened to the profession, and took into ...
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News
Direct Line applies to set up law firm through ABS
Britain’s biggest car insurer, Direct Line Group, has applied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to become an alternative business structure. The insurer wants to create a newly formed and wholly owned law firm, DLG Legal Services, to operate in partnership with existing law firm Parabis. Direct Line Group already provides ...
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News
Convey Law becomes ABS
Convey Law, which claims to be one of the country’s top 10 residential conveyancing companies, has been granted ABS status by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. The firm’s sales and marketing director Rob Hosier told the Gazette that the firm applied to change its status because it is owned by ...
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News
Stobart director gains licence for solicitor ABS as ‘final piece in the jigsaw’
Trevor Howarth, legal director of Stobart Barristers, has been granted an alternative business structure licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for a company he set up with an employment barrister, he confirmed today. The SRA has licensed One Legal, a company set up by Howarth and employment barrister Tim Edge ...
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News
SRA’s 2013 diversity data collection system goes live
Firms can now report their workforce diversity data, including sexual orientation, ethnicity, age and gender, through a new online facility on mySRA, the Solicitors Regulation Authority announced today. Collection of this data is a Legal Services Board requirement to promote transparency and diversity in the legal services market, the SRA ...
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Opinion
Time for a ‘sub-profession’ in the law?
The article about interventions in last week’s Gazette, which included a description of the consequences and cost of the collapse of Blakemores, should have us all worried for the future of our profession. It is clear now that our leaders were mistaken when they allowed first advertising and later referral ...
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FeatureCase fee decisions
We all like to complain. There is probably somebody sat nearby in your office complaining about something right now.
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News
Accountants challenged by Society over ‘flawed’ application
The Law Society has condemned the ‘seriously flawed’ application by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales (ICAEW) to become an approved licensing body for the grant of probate, it emerged last week. In a letter to Legal Services Board (LSB) chief executive Chris Kenny, the Society accuses ...
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Opinion
SRA rules are inconsistent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is taking an average of seven months to license an alternative business structure, and 20% of applications have taken longer than nine months to process. Schedule 11 of the Legal Services Act prescribes that the decision period must be six months from the date an application ...
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Feature
How agents work when the SRA intervenes into a failing firm
When the Solicitors Regulation Authority intervenes in a failing practice, it is a fast-moving process – and one that is often misunderstood by clients, creditors and practitioners alike. Within hours of the decision being made, the firm’s practice accounts will be frozen and within days its files, computers and accounting ...