The Solicitors Regulation Authority has shut down three law firms in the space of a week in a spate of enforcement action.
As well as the high-profile intervention into PM Law and its various trading names, the regulator is also acting to protect clients of several smaller firms.
The cost of this flurry of activity is yet to be established but more details could emerge this week with the expected publication of the SRA’s latest business plan which will set out solicitors’ annual fees and compensation fund contributions for next year.
The SRA intervened last week into Stalybridge firm Thompson & Cooke Ltd to protect the interests of clients and trustees.
Companies House records show that the firm, which dates back almost 100 years, was subject to a court winding up order at the end of March following a petition from Premium Credit Limited.
Its accounts for the 2024/25 year are now overdue. The most recent accounts state that as of March 2024 the firm had 18 staff and net assets of £869,000.
On the same day as the Thompson & Cooke intervention, the SRA also shut down Ipswich firm Ross Coates Solicitors, as well as suspending the practising rights of Coates himself.
The regulator said it had acted to protect clients and trustees and noted that there was suspicion that Coates, as manager of the firm, had failed to comply with rules applicable to him. He has been a solicitor since 1979, Law Society records show.
The Ipswich Star newspaper has reported that the two-office firm has received hundreds of negative reviews on Trustpilot and Review Solicitors in the last six years, with complaints of delays, lack of communication and mistakes on legal documents.
Last August, the firm was fined £13,690 by the SRA after investigators found it had breached money laundering regulations for almost eight years.
On 21 April, the SRA intervened into Uxbridge firm Danbar Solicitors to protect clients and trustees, as well as suspending senior solicitor and director Jennifer Owusu-Barnieh.
The firm’s accounts for 2023/24 are now 16 months overdue, according to Companies House records.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Owusu-Barnieh was the firm’s head of immigration and in charge of trainee solicitors.
Meanwhile, two former managers with a firm closed down last year have been barred from the legal profession.
Harpreet Nijjar and Sukhuir Talwar, the owners of south west London firm BGM Law Ltd, were both found to have breached the rules after acquiring the business without notifying the SRA or seeking its approval. Nijjar was also found to have allowed the firm to be used as a vehicle for fraud while Talwar misled the SRA over the firm’s professional indemnity insurance renewal. The was subject to intervention in June 2025.
