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All lawyers will have to give clients clear information about how to complain, and their regulators will have to monitor that it is done, the Legal Services Board has announced.

Referral fees should not be banned, but require greater disclosure and more stringent regulation, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has concluded. This could include conveyancing clients providing written consent to be referred and a ban on auctions for work.

The Legal Services Board’s powers to seize control of regulation from the approved regulators is unnecessary and casts a shadow over the independence of the legal profession, the Law Society president has claimed.

There are to be four extra core professional duties when the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) unveils a slimmed-down Code of Conduct later this week, it has emerged. The draft 40-page code – which will form part of an online Solicitors Handbook bringing together all of the SRA’s regulatory regime – is at the heart of next year’s move to outcomes-focused regulation.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of complaints against barristers this year, with solicitors increasingly complaining, Legal Futures can reveal. Complaints received by Dr Ann Barker, the bar’s Complaints Commissioner, were 38% higher in the first quarter of 2010 than in the same period last year.

Just four law firms featured in the top 60 most visible websites returned when people searched legal terms used Google, research has discovered. An analysis of the 1.2 million searches for legal terms in February found Irwin Mitchell the highest-ranking law firm at 12th, followed by Merseyside personal injury firm Camps (21st), home counties firm Brethertons (48th) and Fentons, a PI firm in London and Manchester (53rd).

This week’s Question of Ethics from the Solicitors Regulation Authority looks at whether tacky advertising by your competitor can bring the profession into disrepute.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling in the Levicom case involving City firm Linklaters last week “will be of concern for City firms and their insurers”, a leading professional indemnity lawyer has warned.

Solicitor Jonathan Djanogly has been given the task of overseeing legal services, legal aid and civil justice policy. This puts him at the heart of many of the key issues facing the profession at the moment, such as alternative business structures, referral fees, legal aid reform and implementing the Jackson report.

Chris Marston, Head of Professional Practices at Lloyds TSB Commercial, assesses solicitors’ prospects in a year of change and transition on the regulatory, competition, economic and political fronts