Latest news

Pay has returned to the top of the list for job-hunting lawyers, overtaking flexibility, but most fee-earners are happy where they are, a survey has found.

A solicitor has admitted manifest incompetence in failing to advise a 92-year-old client to refuse a £60,000 engagement ring and £35,000 car in part-payment of the property he was selling.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has issued a stark warning to the law firms it regulates to “stress test their businesses for resilience” to a fall of up to 40% in work volumes.

Women barristers are closing the pay gap with their male colleagues in certain practice areas but it remains vast in the higher-earning areas of work, the Bar Council has found.

The Legal Services Board is to undertake a “first-principles analysis” of the list of reserved legal activities to consider “potential alternative configurations”.

Stronger rules on how clients are informed about their right to complain, and ensuring verbal expressions of dissatisfaction are treated as complaints, are set to be introduced next year.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is going to have to wait until the end of the Post Office inquiry before it can take formal disciplinary action against any lawyers involved in the scandal.

There are only 15 barristers on Trustpilot but their pages are viewed 4,000 times a day by consumers, showing the opportunity for the Bar, a webinar heard last week.

Competition for six-year solicitor apprenticeships at a leading London law firm is tougher than for training contracts, with a scheme that also gives them experience of the business services teams.

A greater focus on professional ethics among law students and qualified lawyers, with stronger supervision by regulators, is needed to uphold the rule of law, the Legal Services Board has said.