The Solicitors Regulation Authority has stepped in to shut down a firm that has repeatedly fallen foul of its transparency and reporting rules.
The regulator announced that it had intervened into A&T Legal Ltd, trading as Leaside Law, to protect the interests of clients and beneficiaries of trusts it was handling. It was also stated that the firm’s owner and manager Talha Ahmad had failed to comply with the SRA’s code of conduct and indemnity insurance rules.
The effect of the SRA action is that the east London practice closes immediately.
The firm has been fined three times in less than two years. In November 2022 it was ordered to pay £2,000 for failing to publish mandatory details about costs and its complaints procedure, as well as failing to display the SRA’s digital badge on its website.
A further £750 fine was imposed last November when A&T Legal failed to submit workforce diversity data in breach of its regulatory obligations: this was increased to £1,500 in January this year when the breach continued.
Ahmad himself was fined £2,000 in 2022 after it was found that he failed to cooperate with an investigation by the SRA after a complaint from another solicitors’ firm.
The firm’s LinkedIn page described itself as a boutique practice working for landlords, SMEs, charities and individuals, specialising in tenancy disputes, commercial contracts, charity governance and family law. It was founded in 2018.
Bournemouth firm Lester Aldridge has been appointed as intervening agent by the SRA to handle A&T Legal files.
