Ross Coates Solicitors in Ipswich is the latest law firm subjected to an intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, following regulatory action this week.
No details for the closure have been provided by the SRA to date, other than to say it was necessary to intervene to protect client interests. Proprietor Ross Coates is also the subject of an intervention.
The firm had been operating since 1995, covering a broad range of practice areas including conveyancing, private client, family law and crime. A notice on its website, which had been live until the afternoon of Monday 27th April, stated:
This firm has closed.
If you are a client, your matter is being transferred to Chris Evans at Lester Aldridge Solicitors, who will contact you shortly.
A series of recent one-star reviews on ReviewSolicitors are critical of the firm’s inaction over returning funds. Four separate reviewers in April left reviews complaining the firm had taken up to 20 days to return funds, claiming that despite efforts to contact the firm responses had been intermittent.
Ross Coates Solicitors has been the subject of two previous SRA decisions. In August of last year the firm received a fine for historic failures relating to money laundering compliance. A desktop compliance audit found the firm had failed to establish and maintain policies, controls, and procedures to adequately mitigate the risk of money laundering under the money laundering regulations between 2017 and 2025.
The audit also found the firm had failed to “establish and maintain fully appropriate and risk-sensitive policies and procedures relating to customer due diligence measures and ongoing monitoring” between 2011 and 2017. The firm was fined £13,690.
In 2023 it received a written rebuke for operating a suspense ledger for unallocated client money, which at its height held over £40,000, with no policy in place to deal with residual balances.
Chris Evans of Lester Aldridge LLP has been appointed as the intervening agent.
