Latest news

Two former partners of leading City law firms have launched an online legal directory venture that they hope will replace the traditional printed directories. Top3legal enables client recommendations to be linked to an existing database of 156,000 lawyers, assembled from publicly available information.

Training law students in emotional competency, and a change in culture, led from the top, in law firms and chambers are among the shifts needed to combat the growing problem of stress in the legal profession, according to a roundtable held in the run-up to Mental Health Awareness Week, which begins today.

Slater & Gordon announced today that it will invest over £30m on new technology and broadening its services over the next three years – with volume conveyancing a target – as the firm looks to put the troubles of the past behind it. Legal Futures was given the first trade interview with the firm’s CEO about his vision for the future.

The government stood firm on its proposed whiplash reforms yesterday despite criticism from peers, on the first day of the Civil Liability Bill’s committee stage in the House of Lords. Though dozens of amendments were put down, none was pushed to a vote but may well be revisited at the bill’s report stage.

The number of qualified accountants’ reports due to rule breaches has fallen by two-thirds since the rules were changed in 2015, but the amount then being investigated for possible rule breaches has tripled, it has emerged. A handful of them have led to regulatory action as a result.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority should investigate whether there are regulatory barriers to law firms that become alternative business structures providing other professional services such as accountancy and surveying, rather than vice versa, a report it commissioned has recommended.

Technology will revolutionise the way we educate, train, and utilise legal expertise, a senior judge has predicted. Sir Geoffrey Vos, chancellor of the High Court, laid out a vision of the future where training might depend on whether people wanted to be a ‘social lawyer’, a ‘human rights lawyer’ or a ‘business lawyer.

David Gauke, the justice secretary and Lord Chancellor, has admitted that the Ministry of Justice is feeling “a little frustrated” by the direct action taken by criminal law barristers over legal aid fees. Shortly after, the Criminal Bar Association recommended that its members “escalate” their current action by instituting a ‘no returns’ policy from 25 May.

Labour and Liberal Democrat peers have put down a host of amendments to the Civil Liability Bill which aim to limit the impact it would have on whiplash claimants. Tomorrow the bill enters its committee stage in the House of Lords, which allows for changes to the bill, subject either to agreement by the government or, more likely, a vote of the house.

The failure of HM Courts and Tribunals Service to carry the support of lawyers for its ambitious modernisation plans has contributed to failing to meet its timetable, according to Parliament’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office warned that the service was “behind where it expected to be at this stage” of the £1bn reforms