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The “traditionally wide” knowledge gap between lawyers and consumers is “narrowing all the time”, Canadian futurologist Jordan Furlong told delegates at this week’s Legal Futures Annual Conference.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is already in touch with AIM-listed alternative business structure Quindell, it has emerged. There has been widespread speculation about what action the SRA is taking over Quindell, whose share price has nose-dived in recent weeks.

Genus Law, the Leeds-based alternative business structure formerly known as Brilliant Law that is backed by gambling entrepreneur Bert Black, has made its first acquisition. The purchase of niche employment firm Pharos Legal is a “model for what we’re going to do going forward”.

Law firm network Connect2Law has this week been relaunched with a new format and seven ‘platinum’ members who will work alongside leading alternative business structure Parabis.

The outgoing chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has urged the “flat-earthers” at the Law Society to accept that full structural independence for the regulator from Chancery Lane is inevitable.

The High Court has set aside an order made against a litigant after it emerged that his solicitor had duped him by conducting “fictitious” litigation that included faked judgments and telephone conferences involving the impersonation of his senior partner and of leading counsel.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is proposing to cut further the number of law firms required to submit annual accountants’ reports, setting out a revised set of criteria for accountants to decide whether reports should be qualified.

The Chief Legal Ombudsman, Adam Sampson, has resigned from his role after a controversy about travel expenses meant his organisation’s accounts are likely to be qualified by the National Audit Office.

Chris Kenny, the outgoing chief executive of the Legal Services Board, yesterday called on legal regulators to implement a “trade off” between access to the law and quality of service, with a “safety net” of easy redress when things go wrong.

The Serious Fraud Office has failed in an unusual bid to resurrect a prosecution against six people, including three solicitors and a QC, over an alleged conspiracy to defraud three local authorities in Wales and the Coal Authority.