Latest news

Male clients were half as likely as their female counterparts to nominate women for a place in a global guide to star lawyers, despite the fact they rated the performance by women lawyers as equal or better. The company behind the findings said male bias among made it harder for women lawyers to progress.

There is a worrying “disconnect” between the factors that law firms consider most important in driving growth of their firms and the way their lawyers are paid, a report has found. The report found that firms were “telling their staff that client satisfaction and recovery rates are important, but will have no bearing on the staff’s remuneration”.

Claimant personal injury solicitors have accused the government of living in a fantasy land as they heavily criticised justice minister Lord Keen’s rationale for raising the small claims limit. One said it was “astonishing” that the Ministry of Justice still has “few solutions” to the issue of large numbers of litigants in person.

Justice minister Lord Keen said today that if the government’s personal injury reforms lead to greater involvement by “good” claims management companies, it could be “beneficial” for the market. He told MPs on the justice select committee this morning that the market was “extremely adaptable and flexible”.

Gordon Dadds Group has made its first law firm acquisition since listing on AIM last summer, buying a specialist technology and corporate practice for up to £3.4m. In other ABS news, Co-operative Legal Services has launched an online platform for uncontested divorces with solicitor support, while a will-writing ABS has gone into liquidation.

The Ministry of Justice has said it was “business as usual” on the housing and debt legal aid phone lines operated by Carillion Advice Services yesterday, following the collapse of the parent company. However, a law firm that markets a partnership with the paralegal business declined to talk about the implications.

Former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain has launched a blistering attack on leading UK/US law firm Hogan Lovells over what he said was its role in the Gupta family scandal in South Africa. The veteran anti-apartheid campaigner said he has asked the Solicitors Regulation Authority to withdraw Hogan Lovells’ authorisation and discipline “leading partners”.

A new report has spelt out the “formidable” competition the Big Four accountants could become in the legal market, given that the three largest of them alone turnover more than the biggest 100 law firms in the world combined. It was published in the wake of Deloitte becoming the last member of the Big Four to apply for an ABS licence.

The pioneering owner of an innovative law firm that was “ahead of its time” but failed has taken the highly unusual step of laying out the reasons why it did not work, and warned that “innovation is much more difficult and fraught with fiscal peril than most imagine”.

Solicitors setting up an alternative business structure this month in Marlborough, Wiltshire, have chosen to be regulated by the Bar Standards Board. It is understood to be the first time a BSB-regulated ABS has been created without barrister involvement.