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The risk of solicitors being landed with hefty VAT bills for electronic property searches has become a reality for at least one law firm, which has now received a demand from HM Revenue & Customs for tens of thousands of pounds. It has heightened the call for the tax treatment of postal and electronic searches to be made consistent.

A solicitor who made offensive remarks in a private Facebook group has been rebuked and fined, while other unusual disciplinary decisions announced yesterday included a suspension for a barrister who got her clerk to lie about her availability for a hearing.

The Ministry of Justice is at risk of freezing out a large number of vulnerable people from accessing the online court if it does not reshape its strategy for assisting the ‘digitally excluded’, according to a major study by the Civil Justice Council. Meanwhile, another report called for further research targeted at hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless and detained persons.

The chairman of the Bar Council said yesterday that he would support the £15m deal being offered by the Ministry of Justice to end the action over criminal legal aid fees, as barristers began voting on whether to accept it. It came amid sharply divergent views from others about whether barristers should be standing shoulder to shoulder with solicitors.

Four in five motorists do not think it is likely that their insurer will cut premiums after saving more than £1bn under the government’s personal injury (PI) reforms. A similar number would not know what to do if the reforms forced them to pursue a PI claim on their own.

A law firm that topped the table for holiday sickness claims is among 27 claimant firms being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, it has emerged. A leading defendant solicitor said he was surprised to see the firm heading the list, because it was “not one we had pretty much ever heard of”.

The Ministry of Justice’s top civil servant has told MPs that the government’s massive court reform programme will have failed if it does not carry the support of those who work in and use the courts. Meanwhile, the chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunal Service stressed that non-digital systems would remain alongside digital ones.

Manchester University has launched what is understood to be the first legal technology course for law degree students in England and Wales. The course will combine classroom study of different approaches to access to justice with building an app for use by legal non-profit organisations.

Numeracy skills will be “massively more important in the new world of legal services delivery”, the co-founder of “legal engineers” Wavelength Law has predicted. He said there would be more solicitors in the future, as new technology and automation generated new kinds of disputes.

The Financial Conduct Authority has set out the more stringent regime it intends to apply to claims management companies when it takes over their regulation on 1 April 2019. A consultation on its new rules said that “when working well, CMCs can provide useful services for customers”, but it also identified several “harms” to consumers.