The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor with 55 years experience for overcharging probate clients. Harold Anthony Newell qualified as a solicitor 1963. He had been a sole practitioner of TS Barkes & Son of Moreton-in-Marsh. The tribunal found that Mr Newell failed to provide client care letters or any written costs information […]
Continue readingA solicitor who made thousands of pounds worth of fraudulent legal aid claims has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). The SDT found that Drakens Mukoro tried to cover his tracks by creating fake attendance notes for mental health hearings that never took place. The tribunal said Mr Mukoro’s culpability was “of […]
Continue readingThe Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has described letters sent to clients by failed Bolton law firm Asons as “disgraceful” and “self-serving”. The tribunal made the comments in its written ruling suspending former principal Kamran Akram for 18 months and ordering him to pay costs of £115,000. The SDT said “inflated bills” were sent out by […]
Continue readingSolicitor overcharged client
- 03
- Jul
An immigration solicitor told a client an advocate’s fee was five times higher than it really was and pocketed the difference in an “appalling case” highlighted by a member of human rights organisation Justice’s working party on immigration and appeals. The report states that the working party member’s experience is “an extreme but far from […]
Continue readingLaw firms handling claims over mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) are charging clients more than both the level the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) deems reasonable and the cap that will shortly be imposed on them by government, research by the regulator has found. The SRA said that its research – based on a review of […]
Continue readingA personal injury solicitor has admitted paying unlawful referral fees for claims and running cases which clients had not authorised. Andrew Clinch dealt with numerous personal injury claims where purported victims of road traffic accidents had either not signed the relevant forms or expressly said they did not wish to pursue compensation. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal […]
Continue readingThe Solicitors Regulation Authority has struck off a solicitor who stole more than £300,000 of his elderly and disabled client’s money using a secret bank account. Stephen John Acres was found to have committed the “outrageous plundering” of his client’s assets in a particularly “deplorable” case of dishonest conduct. The tribunal heard that, as well […]
Continue readingThe Court of Appeal reduced a litigant’s legal costs from £415,000 (claimed) to £110,000 (allowed), ruling that the litigant had made excessive use of solicitors to advise on proceedings. Lord Justice Davis ruled that the sum claimed, of over £415,000 to be “eye-watering.” (Source – Legal Loop website)
Continue readingA solicitor has been struck off after being found by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to have dishonestly charged an estate “manifestly excessive” fees for probate work – almost nine times the agreed amount. The tribunal heard that, between June 2011 and July 2012, Christopher William Edwin Greenman misappropriated £90,000 as fees from an estate whose […]
Continue readingThe Senior Courts Costs Office has thrown out a conditional fee agreement (‘no win, no fee”) deemed to be unreasonable for the client. Master Gordon-Saker said the £420 hourly rate of the law firm which drew up the agreement was more akin to a top fee earner in the City doing complex, high value work […]
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