Latest news
Quindell forced to shelve plans for main market listing
Alternative business structure Quindell plc has had to shelve its much-trumpeted plans for a full listing on the London Stock Exchange, the company admitted today. The news has further hit the AIM-listed company’s share price.
Russia-focused multi-disciplinary ABS plans growth
In the latest of our series profiling the new breed of alternative business structure, we speak to Red Square London, a law firm and multi-disciplinary family office that provides services mainly to wealthy Russian and Russian-speaking clients.
I took this job to change legal services market, says new LSB chair
Sir Michael Pitt, the new chairman of the Legal Services Board, has said he took the job to “help change the legal services market”. He argued that “more change is needed” to deliver a better legal services market and better access to justice.
Kenny: BIS data-sharing plans could be a “dead letter”
Plans by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for improved data sharing between different regulators could be a “dead letter” if they are not applied to all of the legal regulators, the Legal Services Board has warned.
Minimum salary finally to go as LSB approves training deregulation
The Legal Services Board has approved wide-ranging plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to deregulate training, including the delayed demise of the minimum salary.
Parliamentary inquiry calls for renewed wills push in bid to increase charitable giving
A parliamentary inquiry has called for a push to encourage people to make wills and that will-writers should inform all clients that they are able to leave money to charity in them.
Non-lawyers may be gentlemen – but they can’t be officers
The distance between reform in the UK and US has been shown up starkly by a Texan ethics ruling that prohibits non-lawyers working in law firms to have the word ‘officer’ in their job titles.
Government to ban inducements in latest insurance fraud crackdown
The government announced over the weekend that it is to ban lawyers from “encouraging people to make claims” by offering them upfront incentives like cash or iPads. It forms part of a new wave of reform in personal injury targeted at insurance fraud.
SRA whittles down diversity data non-compliers to hardcore 100
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has cut the number of law firms failing to hand over data on the diversity of their staff from 1,106 to 108. The regulator said it had made it “very clear” to the remaining firms that they would face enforcement action.
Division of claims complaints costs unfair, says First4Lawyers
The Ministry of Justice proposals on how the Legal Ombudsman’s costs for handling complaints against claims management companies are recovered disproportionally penalises those working in personal injury, a leading marketing collective has argued.
Blog
Motor finance – the FCA is more worried about banks than consumers
The Financial Conduct Authority’s motor finance redress scheme announced last week amounts to one of the largest ever consumer failures by the regulator.
Mazur: a symptom not a cause?
If Mazur is a symptom, what does it mean for the underlying health of our civil justice system: the ‘finest legal system in the world’?
Cross-generation collaboration: the key to in-house legal tech adoption
In-house legal function leaders will increasingly have to evolve their thinking on how to manage multigenerational teams containing differing levels of technological expertise.
