Two Liverpool claims firms have been shut down in one day by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in an unprecedented flurry of activity.
Both firms subject to intervention – Langton Law and BPS Solicitors – have close links with another Liverpool firm, McDermott Smith, which went into administration last month.
The SRA said it was satisfied that Alistair Davies, manager of BPS Solicitors, had contravened the Administration of Justice Act 1985, although there are no suspicions of dishonesty of accounts rules breaches. The firm is immediately shut as a result of the intervention and Davies, admitted in 1988, suspended.
The regulator also shut down Langton Law Limited and suspended its manager Kathryn Langton, admitted in 2009, because of a suspected failure to comply with SRA principles, the code of conduct and accounts rules.
North west firm Stephensons Solicitors has been appointed as the intervening agent for both BPS and Langtons.
McDermott Smith appointed administrators last month. It massively increased its work in progress and debts the year before.
It is understood that BPS Solicitors took on some of McDermott Smith’s work in progress when it closed. Until April, it had been registered at the same Liverpool address as McDermott Smith. The firm’s head of housing disrepair was previously with McDermott Smith and Davies himself had joined from that firm in April this year.
It did not operate on the same scale as McDermott Smith, but accounts for 2022/23 show that BPS went from zero staff to two and from £110,000 debts to more than £1.8m. Headcount was around 40 by the time of the intervention.
At the start of the summer the firm was recruiting housing disrepair solicitors and three months ago it offered training contracts to three staff. They have posted on LinkedIn today looking for firms to pick up their training contracts.
Langton Law was incorporated in December 2022 after being founded by Kathryn Langton. She was also a director of McDermott Smith before resigning in 2024. Langtons had been registered at the same address as the collapsed firm until last week, when it switched to a city centre address in Dale Street. A week ago on LinkedIn, Langton Law announced it was moving to bigger and better premises, telling followers that a location would be announced soon.
