Latest news
Law Society urges Quinn firms to hold nerve after broker warns over fresh cover
The Law Society has told the 2,911 law firms which have their professional indemnity insurance with Quinn that they do not need to take action at the moment, despite a warning that they may have to seek fresh cover within four weeks of the company’s provisional administration being confirmed.
The recruitment dimension
With the Legal Services Act reforms on the horizon, Colin Loth, Manager of Legal at international recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark, discusses the impact the Act will have on the job market and talented legal professionals.
Should I be a police informant?
This week’s SRA Question of Ethics looks at what you should do if a client leaves you with an item which you think would be relevant to a police investigation. Should you had it over to the police?
Revealed: the first barrister partner
The first barrister to become a partner in a legal disciplinary practice is a consumer credit specialist in the West Midlands, Legal Futures can reveal. Portia O’Connor, who practises from her own chambers in Birmingham, Pegasus Chambers, set up Pegasus Legal Research in conjunction with solicitor Sameena Kauser.
Poll points to push for online legal services
A majority of consumers expect good law firms to offer their services online in the next couple of years, a survey of over 2,000 people has shown. It also showed that nearly half of consumers would be more likely to choose a firm that offered online access.
Legal executives seek full spread of rights
ILEX Professional Standards (IPS) is to seek conveyancing and criminal advocacy and litigation rights for legal executives, it has emerged. It forms part of IPS’s plan to become a regulator of alternative business structures.
Top of the pops
Legal Futures Editor Neil Rose recently edited ‘Legal Efficiency’, a supplement published by The Times covering a range of key issues facing the profession as it moves into a new era. This is his article on the likely implications of alternative business structures
BSB fires warning shot over SRA regulation
The Bar Standards Board has fired a warning shot across the bows of its solicitor counterpart, warning that “there will be instances where outcomes-based regulation is likely to be inadequate on its own, even if supplemented by guidance”.
Scottish solicitors narrowly back ABSs
The row about introducing alternative business structures in Scotland took a fresh turn this week after members of the Law Society of Scotland voted very narrowly to support the current policy in favour of them.
Barrister named partner in LDP
Nicole Curtis has become one of the first barristers to become a partner in a legal disciplinary practice (LDP) after being made up by Penningtons. There are now 186 LDPs, which between them have 210 partners – 83 non-solicitor lawyers and 127 non-lawyers
Blog
The cost of systemic failure and childbirth injuries
Recent reports show that the NHS has paid almost £3.5bn in medical claims around childbirth injuries over the past six years.
Mazur: when regulators make simple things complicated
What the last six months have shown is that supervision cannot be treated as a background compliance obligation quietly managed somewhere in a firm’s operational processes.
How unstoppable AI is reshaping UK legal practice
At a time when most technology innovation still flows from the US and China, UK lawtech is attracting growing international attention and capital.
