A lawyer formerly at Asons Solicitors and its successor Coops Law, both of which were shut down last year by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), has turned his back on personal injury and is eyeing a move into the property market.

Bilal Khan Akram is now a secretary and director at Bolton-based National Property Lawyers Ltd. According to a filing at Companies House, the company was incorporated on 3 July.

Akram told the Gazette he was in the early stages of setting up the company but that he hoped to move into conveyancing.

The Companies House filing describes the nature of the business - listed to a Bolton address - as 'solicitors’, meaning it would require authorisation from the SRA. However, Akram said he was yet to decide whether the firm would be a solicitors’ practice.

Akram was a personal injury solicitor at Asons and Coops and is the younger brother of both Kamran Akram, the former principal solicitor at Asons, and Imran Akram – the firm's co-founder.

Asons was shut down in March 2017 following an SRA intervention. An offshoot called Coops Law was incorporated shortly after but was also closed by the regulator in June 2017. In May this year, Kamran Akram was suspended for 18 months by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) and ordered to pay costs of £115,000 after being found to have failed to manage his practice effectively.

Akram told the Gazette: ‘I want to take my time as I have to make sure I get it right. I did not have a big role at Asons, I was just working there. It’s been hard since then. The company [National Property Lawyers] will be my responsibility and I have been speaking to people about marketing and promotion but it is in the very early stages.’

According to The Law Society’s Find a Solicitor service, Bilal Akram was admitted on 3 February 2014.