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AIM-listed Quindell Portfolio is to acquire its second leading claimant personal injury (PI) law firm after reaching agreement to purchase Pinto Potts for around £14m. The deal also extends Quindell’s offering to insurers beyond PI.

Around a sixth of practising solicitors – and a quarter of those working in-house – say they have been bullied in the workplace, according to a survey on wellbeing in the profession. Almost one in five of solicitors suffer from severe stress or worse, the figures also suggest.

Law students believe that alternative business structures will mean more job opportunities but lower salaries and status, according to a survey conducted by the College of Law. It also found that four in ten post-graduate students are shouldering debts of more than £20,000

It is solicitors, and not barristers, who are to blame for the decline in advocacy standards that has led to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), the Bar Council has claimed, while also strongly opposing the creation of ‘plea-only advocates’.

Some of the country’s biggest legal brands are going head to head on our screens this month after Irwin Mitchell launched its first-ever television advertising campaign, Russell Jones & Walker unveiled a new approach to promoting its Claims Direct brand and QualitySolicitors (QS) started its second round of adverts.

An Edinburgh law firm claims to have become the first in the UK to embrace full employee ownership of the business. The new employee-owned company, Fox & Partners, gives all of the firm’s 10 staff an ownership stake in the new entity.

Regulators need to take urgent action to improve the way lawyers handle complaints after a “hard-hitting” new report highlighted multiple failings. However, although clients are often scared to complain, a positive experience when they do can actually make them likely to recommend the provider.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will drive many solicitors out of criminal law, the Law Society has warned. It is the latest hostile response to the final consultation on the scheme ahead of its introduction in January.

“Numerous” external investors will appear alongside consolidation and new structures once the “floodgates of change” hit the personal injury market next year – with just five or six claimant firms likely to dominate – an authoritative new report has predicted.

Compliance officers for legal practice (COLPs) should be allowed to buy in independent external advice at their firm’s expense in the event of a conflict with management, according to two senior solicitor consultants.