(1)Subject to subsection (2) any solicitor [F2or incorporated practice] who shares with an unqualified person any profits or fees derived from any solicitor’s business transacted by him [F2or, as the case may be, it] shall be guilty of an offence.
(2)Subsection (1) does not apply to a solicitor [F3or incorporated practice] sharing the profits or fees derived from such a business with—
(a)a person who has ceased to practice as a solicitor if such share—
(i)is in respect of the price or value of the business transferred by that person to him [F3or, as the case may be, to it]; or
(ii)is a voluntary or other allowance made to that person as a former partner in the business [F3or former director of the incorporated practice]; or
(b)the widow, heirs, executors, representatives, next of kin, or dependents of any deceased solicitor who was a partner in the business [F3or, as the case may be, a director or member of the incorporated practice] at the date of his death, or whose business he [F3or, as the case may be, it] has purchased or succeeded to; or
(c)any clerk or assistant who is wholly employed by him [F3or, as the case may be, it] if such share is a salary partly or wholly paid on the basis of a percentage of those profits; or
(d)any public officer if such share is in respect of work done in the course of his duty; or
(e)a person qualified to act as a solicitor in some part of the United Kingdom other than Scotland or in any British possession if such share is paid in accordance with an agreement between them for sharing fees.
(3)In paragraph (e) of subsection (2), “British possession” means any part of Her Majesty’s dominions outside the United Kingdom as at 1st March 1934.]
Textual Amendments
F1S. 27 repealed (prosp.) by Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 (c. 40, SIF 76:2), ss. 74, 75(2), Sch. 9