Most personal injury (PI) firm partners would probably agree that the last few years have been a nightmare for them, what with the referral fee ban, LASPO and the Jackson reforms. But could matters get a whole lot worse? The latest issue that could create havoc for PI firms is that of negligence claims arising out of the under-settling of PI claims, but following closely behind this issue appears to be the under-assessing of PI claims.

If regulators are not loved by those they regulate, then it is no surprise to find that the regulator of regulators is even less loved. And so I don’t imagine that beyond the offices of the Legal Services Board, many tears will be shed that David Edmonds’ second and final term of office is up today. There may, indeed, be some sighs of relief.

The popularity of comparison sites such as Compare The Market is clear for everyone to see, but up until now there has not been a service such as this for law firms. However, this is all set to change, as the Legal Services Board, the oversight regulator, has said that it has secured ‘agreement in principle’ from all the approved regulators in order to publish information they hold about their regulated communities in a ‘reusable format’.

In a guest blog, Legal Services Board chief executive Chris Kenny explains why the board recently issued guidance to the frontline regulators on how they should go about implementing the report of the Legal Education and Training Review. If the benefits of the liberalised legal services market of the future are to be fully realised, he says, it is absolutely vital that a flexible, more agile labour market is allowed to develop.

It’s not often that I feel sorry for law firm PR people, but I sense that Irwin Mitchell’s is getting a little fed up with being asked when the firm is going to float. There has for some years been a widespread assumption in the market that it was a question of when, not if, this would happen. It has been reported in both the national and legal press as fact (although not on Legal Futures, on the old-fashioned basis that actually it wasn’t a fact).