All Regulation and compliance articles – Page 153
-
News
Publish complaints against firms, Consumer Panel urges
The body that advises the Legal Services Board on the interests of consumers has called for the publication of complaints made against law firms if they have been upheld. Responding to an open consultation by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) on whether its decisions should be published, the Legal Services Consumer ...
-
News
Conveyancing under spotlight as SRA unveils sweeping PII reforms
The single renewal date for professional indemnity insurance (PII) should be scrapped from 1 October next year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has recommended in a consultation on client financial protection, published today. The regulator simultaneously announced that it will begin investigating failures in the conveyancing process early next year, and ...
-
News
Consumer panel wants lawyers to undergo ‘regular MOT’
Lawyers would have to demonstrate at regular intervals that they are competent to practise under radical proposals from consumer watchdogs for beefing up quality. The Legal Services Consumer Panel has today called for the introduction of ‘periodic validation’ – a review of permission to practise after a fixed time – ...
-
News
Consumer panel calls for competence test for lawyers
Lawyers should undergo five-yearly competence testing and there should be peer review of the advice they provide to clients, the chairwoman of the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. Dianne Hayter said continuing professional development was an insufficient check of quality, and she would like to see a more formal ...
-
News
Legal Services Board launches consumer panel
The Legal Services Board has unveiled its eight-strong consumer panel to represent the interests of individual and business consumers in England and Wales. The LSB said that the independent panel will help it develop a ‘sharper focus’ on consumers’ interests across the legal services sector, and enhance access to justice.
-
News
LSB appoints chairwoman of consumer panel
The Legal Services Board has appointed Dr Dianne Hayter as chairwoman of its independent consumer panel. The panel, set up by the Legal Services Act 2007, will advise the LSB on the interests of all legal services users, including individual and business consumers. LSB chairman David Edmonds said: ‘The panel’s ...
-
News
LSB consumer panel members will do it for love, not money
‘The common thread that underpins the Legal Services Board’s work is the consumer,’ the LSB declared in its business plan. With this in mind, it is presently recruiting a chair and members for its consumer panel, which the board says will have ‘considerable scope to advise and influence the LSB ...
-
News
People’s peers
Anyone for ping-pong? Yes, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill is back in the Lords this week, for the upper house to pick over its wounded amendments following their savaging last week in the Commons. In the end, of course, the Commons will get its way. As ...
-
Feature
Will overhaul of PII regulation soften up the market?
The shake-up of solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance has been protracted.
-
News
Maggie Maggie Maggie! In in in!
The last time I was in the same room as Margaret Thatcher, several hundred Japanese businessmen were there, too. It was Tokyo, September 1989, the high noon of Japan's economic power. World leaders were passing through every week to pay homage to the yen, but prime minister Thatcher was different. ...
-
News
SRA to rubber stamp next phase of red tape cuts
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has said it is open to further ideas for cutting regulation after several demands from members of the profession. The regulator is this week expected to rubber stamp the second phase of its programme to reduce red tape. Under the new reforms, compliance officers will no ...
-
News
SRA intervenes after solicitor arrested
A solicitor from Cheshire has been suspended from practising after he was arrested on suspicion of fraud. The Solicitors Regulation Authority today intervened to prevent partner Andrew Taylor from practising at his firm in Cheadle. Police confirmed last week that they had arrested a 56-year-old man on suspicion of fraud ...
-
News
SRA to fast track ABS applications
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will fast track alternative business structure applications from firms seeking to bid for new criminal legal aid contracts, it has been revealed. In a letter to the House of Commons Justice Committee, SRA board chair Charles Plant said that ABS applications from non-traditional law firms could ...