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Innovative legal business Axiom has become the latest to open an operation in Belfast, with £1.6m of government support. Unlike at other law firm operations in the city, the 100 lawyers and paralegals will be the primary client-facing fee-earners for global companies.

There is in excess of £1bn of private equity money available for investment in the legal market, while at least one UK law firm will proceed to a public listing this year, one of the profession’s leading bankers, James Tsolakis of RBS, has predicted.

Mid-tier law firms are over-engineering their risk management and compliance functions, spending more than both bigger and smaller practices for far less return, new research from Lockton has claimed.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has called upon the ongoing Legal Education and Training Review to propose a revalidation scheme for lawyers. At the same event, delegates were told that judicial evaluation in the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates is flawed.

Consumers of probate and estate administration services are significantly more satisfied when they receive their advice face to face, rather than by e-mail, post or telephone, major research has found, while those on fixed fees pay a third less than those charged by the hour.

Probate and estate administration services should become reserved legal activities, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has recommended. It follows the panel’s call last year for will-writing to be regulated as well, which sparked a formal LSB investigation into the issue.

The legal aid reforms will open up opportunities for law firms, with alternative business structures (ABSs) offering one way to exploit them, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly claimed last week. The significance of ABSs “cannot be overstated”, he said.

The Law Society has warned the Legal Services Board that it is overstepping its role as an oversight body by trying to become a market regulator. The society said the board plans for the future suggested an “inappropriately proactive approach for an oversight regulator”.

Claimant groups have welcomed the House of Lords votes to exclude industrial disease cases from the end of recoverability, but questioned why there is a different rule for other injured people. Also, refusing to put the 10% increase in damages on the face of the bill could cause problems, they warned.

The Legal Services Board has given the clearest hint yet that it is supporting the position of solicitors in the row over the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. Legal Futures also understands that the LSB is pushing the Bar Standards Board to accept a compromise.