It was the weekend and I found myself sat in a room full of barristers and judges, a little too much like how I spend some of my weekdays. We were gathered for a compulsory training course run by Gray’s Inn for new practitioners (barristers of under four years’ advocacy experience). Most of my group, like me, were on the cusp of going from new to ‘established’ practitioners. Our training included various interim applications for which we had to draft a skeleton argument. The feedback from the trainers on our skeletons stuck with me. We had all written far too much and probably double what was required. I wondered why.

Tackling social mobility has become a key issue within the legal profession. Targets and initiatives aimed at improving diversity and inclusivity have gathered momentum in recent years, and this has culminated in a marked increase in the volume of women and ethnic groups entering the sector. Indeed, the legal sector is perhaps doing more than most to combat diversity issues. Published in June 2017, the Social Mobility Employer Index ranked UK employers for the first time on actions taken to provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds. In total, 16 law firms made the top 50, as well as the Honourable Society for the Inner Temple. These efforts are paying dividends.

It’s been a buyer’s market in recent years for solicitors purchasing professional indemnity insurance (PII). But could that soon change? We canvassed the views of a number of experts to find out what 2018 might hold. For some law firms with good claims records, the benign picture of 2017 remains unchanged, with insurers offering a range of incentives, including 18-month contracts and additional cyber cover or lower run-off premiums, to encourage them to review their options earlier and go with them. However, problems far away from the UK legal sector could have an effect on how much solicitors pay for their insurance in future.

Last month, MPs on the justice select committee asked minister Lord Keen what would happen when the government went ahead with its plan to raise the small claims limit for personal injury claims (from £1,000 to £5,000 for road traffic related claims and to £2,000 for everything else). As it is a jurisdiction in which lawyers do not generally operate – because legal costs are not recoverable – who might help claimants navigate what can still be a complex process? His answer, surprisingly, was claims management companies.

On 25 May 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force. That might seem like a long time, but that’s just over 100 days away at the time of writing. Actually, GDPR was adopted back in April 2016, May 2018 is the end of the two-year grace period. The GDPR brings with it a whole host of changes, and the penalties for non-compliance are higher than ever, either 4% of your annual turnover or £20m, whichever is higher. But how do you prepare? What do you need to change first? Where do you even start?