Latest news

Nick Clegg, former Dragon’s Den star James Caan and busloads of young people will descend on City law firms Slaughter and May and CMS Cameron McKenna today as part of the deputy prime minister’s campaign to increase opportunities for those from less privileged backgrounds.

A growing amount of legal work could be “de-lawyered” and provided by organisations that offer a wide range of legal and non-legal services, the strategy director of the Legal Services Board has suggested.

The Bar Standards Board has waded into the controversy over government plans to introduce price competitive tendering in criminal work by warning that it risks causing irreparable harm to the credibility of the criminal justice system and incentivises lawyers to encourage guilty pleas.

Solicitors and barristers will have to adjust to “the new circumstances” they are facing as a result of legal aid and other reforms “if they are going to survive”, justice minister Lord McNally said yesterday.

In-deed Online plc – the first listed company to buy a law firm – is now set to become the first alternative business structure (ABS) casualty after announcing plans to sell the practice back to one of its founders along with the rest of the online conveyancing company’s business.

The defence protecting honest solicitors duped by mortgage fraudsters that was erected by the Court of Appeal last year has been reinforced by the High Court. A law firm can be relieved of consequential liability for a breach of trust if it acts honestly and reasonably.

Meerkats entered the law today as BGL Group – one of the UK’s leading insurance intermediaries and owner of the comparethemarket.com website – received its alternative business structure licence to acquire Yorkshire personal injury law firm Minster Law.

The legal arm of a publicly quoted human resource consultancy boasting global blue-chip clients has been granted an alternative business structure (ABS) licence. 3HR plc offers Asian multinational companies an outsourced employment business support service

A “process of natural selection” will thin out those law firms without the backing to compete with those benefiting from external investment, a major new report has found, with half of firms polled eyeing up the possibilities of bringing in cash.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority needs to consider alternatives to intervening in failing law firms, the Law Society has said, while accepting the “emergency” need for the regulator to dip into the Compensation Fund to pay for the unexpectedly high cost of interventions this year.