Legal Services

Many solicitors are uneasily contemplating what life will be like in the ‘new normal’. Some will certainly be affected by the winding down of the government’s job retention (furlough) scheme, which is set to end in October.

 https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/a-new-world-of-work/5104864.article#.Xwmjxr1Qi5o.twitter

The head of a law firm who said she was lied to by a consultant solicitor, who paid £2.25m of property sale proceeds to a third party as part of a pattern of flagrant misconduct, has accepted a rebuke.

Three in 10 chambers do not think they will survive more than six months as Covid-19 continues to hammer them, with pupils also set to be badly affected, Bar Council research has warned.

The coronavirus crisis will impede much-needed efforts to turn around the performance of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), its new chair has warned in an interview with Legal Futures.

A solicitor was kept in the dark by an experienced bookkeeper about improper transfers she was making from client to office account to keep the firm afloat, a tribunal has heard.

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/solicitor-banned-from-management-over-accounts-failure

Having worked at a legal tech start-up for over a year, I’ve seen first-hand the profession’s resistance to change and the broader implications this could have. Reluctant to adapt and confined to its traditional form, I was not confident of its ability to operate remotely once Covid-19 hit.

A solicitor whose firm received over £530,000 into its client account from an unknown third party, “sat on it” because “we just didn’t know” what to do, a tribunal has heard.

Today, LexisNexis released its first Gross Legal Product index.  This new measure, announced as the ONS reveals that GDP fell 20.4% in April, looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the legal industry.

Legal regulators have reacted coolly to the recommendation of Professor Stephen Mayson that they be replaced by a single organisation, arguing instead the case for specialism.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is to beef up its monitoring of firms’ anti-money laundering (AML) efforts and begin a review of continuing competence, its draft 2020/21 business plan has revealed.

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/sra-to-beef-up-aml-monitoring-of-law-firms?utm_source=iContact%2BWeekly%2BNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=legal-futures&utm_content=