THE Law Society of Scotland is to review allegations made about a firm offering an out-of-hours phone line service for lawyers.
The council of the Law Society will meet today to discuss specific allegations of "insider trading" by the directors of ESTO, which was disbanded on Wednesday.
It had been set up to provide an outsourcing service for solicitors in the wake of the Cadder ruling, which stipulated that suspects must not be questioned without access to a lawyer.
The directors of ESTO, which included John Scott, QC, and Ian Bryce, have denied allegations that the business took advantage of insider trading. They said information about legal aid and the Cadder case was all in the public domain: claims that have been supported by other lawyers in the Law Society's magazine. The directors said the venture was "offered no special assistance or advice".
However, five of the directors had been members of the Law Society's Legal Aid Negotiating Team and the Glasgow Bar Association (GBA) wrote to the Law Society demanding answers.
The service was launched on Monday but the directors stood down on Wednesday and the service disbanded.
The letter sent to the Law Society from GBA president Bernadette Baxter raised questions about whether the business was appropriate and asked if it had benefited from information gathered by its directors while on the society's legal aid negotiating team.
The GBA said: "We want to know whether the directors of ESTO used their positions on the negotiating board with SLAB to create this business."
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