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Only 11% of small businesses consider solicitors to be good value for money, and most choose not to use them when faced by a legal problem, seeing them as a last resort, according to major new research. It also found that the annual cost of small businesses’ legal problems to the UK economy to be roughly £40bn.

The plan by Carillion Advice Services to become an alternative business structure looks to be at an end after the business was bought by magic circle firm Clifford Chance. We also report on two private equity backed ABSs that have used their financial muscle to expand, and a private client firm that has decided to enter regulation with the CLC.

Conveyancers saw their first annual drop in workload since 2011 last year, with volumes down 12% to under a million transactions, according to new research. It also found that the number of conveyancing firms has dropped by 28% over the past decade.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority received nearly 300 reports of personal injury (PI) law firms either paying illegal referral fees or being involved in cold-calling, it has revealed. This is in the context of there being only 768 ‘specialist’ law firms, which the Solicitors Regulation Authority defines as generating at least half their turnover from PI work.

State-school education solicitors are far more likely to operate in criminal law than corporate, new figures published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority have shown. It also said that one-third of partners were women, although it was 29% for firms of 50 or more partners – both figures showing progress in recent years.

Making membership of the Inns of Court optional for barristers would disadvantage those with the least “social capital”, the Bar Council has warned. It strongly defended the role of the Inns, the minimum 12-month period for pupillages, and compulsory Inns of Court dinners for students.

National insurance law firm BLM has teamed up with three professors from the London School of Economics in a two-year research project to create models that predict the cost, length and outcome of litigation. AI will be an “important part” of the partnership, but it aims to bled technology with actuarial knowledge and ‘decision science’.

Law firms have taken advantage of a soft insurance market to secure 18-month professional indemnity insurance deals at a “very good” rate, a report has found. More firms were asking about additional cover to protect solicitors against defence costs in disciplinary proceedings, in the wake of the Leigh Day case.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel is on the hunt for a new chair after the incumbent jumped ship after just a year to become a member of the Office for Legal Complaints, the body that oversees the Legal Ombudsman. Meanwhile, the Law Society has named the members of its new main board, a key part of its new governance structure.

The government plans to introduce its whiplash reforms in April 2019, it emerged today. The Motor Accident Solicitors Society said it has today been told that ministers have agreed for the personal injury reforms to be implemented from that date, with an initial focus on RTA.