As the market begins to settle down following the legal reforms surrounding general personal injury, solicitors and insurers are now assessing the positive and negative ramifications of these changes. The spotlight has now turned to what is perceived as another ‘growth area’ of negligence claims suddenly coming out of the woodwork, with noise-induced hearing loss now being the root of all evil, with the headlines comparing it to whiplash.

Few managing partners care how technology works but all of them care if it works. Given this dependency, IT procurement is now right up there with staff recruitment as a mission critical success factor for law firms and yet far less rigour tends to be applied to the commercial, regulatory and contractual issues involved in this key area of business risk.

Last week’s Cheltenham Festival was the highlight of the jump season calendar and it got me thinking. If the horses running in the Gold Cup were in fact after-the-event insurance providers and all the punters in the stands were law firms, which ‘horse’ is the most likely to come out on top?

Your firm’s 2015 marketing plan should now be in full swing. But if it doesn’t have the word ‘digital’ in it, you need to have a serious word with yourselves. A big headline from 2014 came from Google, who revealed that 35% of all legal services searches are now done from mobile devices.

The Legal Services Board has approved the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposals for changes to the CPD system, with hours-based CPD requirements for solicitors set to become a thing of the past. I believe this presents a great opportunity for the profession to raise the bar through a culture of learning, although it will demand a significant change in attitude for some.