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A partner has been fined £10,000 plus £28,000 costs for being “sloppy, lazy and careless” for acting in conveyances on the instructions of a third party without confirming them with the clients or conducting due diligence on the clients or transaction funds.

The aim of the government’s £1bn court modernisation programme is to cut annual spending on the courts by £250m every year from 2022, with thousands of jobs to go, it has emerged. Around 6,500 out of 16,500 court staff will lose their jobs by 2022 and the number of courts will shrink further from the existing figure of 350.

A solicitor who claimed that he “unwittingly facilitated” money laundering on behalf of an associate of convicted murderer and drug dealer Dale Cregan has been struck off. He was jailed for nine months last year after being convicted of seven counts of failing to comply with money laundering regulations and one count of failing to disclose his suspicions.

Only a handful of legal professionals believe that artificial intelligence software is more accurate than junior lawyers and thus a reason for implementing it, according to a survey. But over three quarters planned to invest in AI systems within the next two years nevertheless, mainly to remain competitive and provide a better service to clients.

Listed firm Keystone Law has reassured investors that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has ended its investigation into a case in which a High Court judge accused it of conniving with clients to try and avoid a debt. Meanwhile, we also report on a series of high-level departures and arrivals at some of the country’s most high-profile ABSs.

Self-employed barristers are “data controllers” and not “data processors” for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as they need to be able to act independently of instructing solicitors, the Bar Council has said.

The government yesterday got its way with the form of the cold-calling ban that will be imposed on claims management companies and said it would be backed up by hefty fines on anyone who uses illegally obtained data.

International law firm Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) is facing a $100m (£73m) class action over claims that it discriminates against female staff when they return to work after childbirth. Three female associates currently employed at the firm alleged that MoFo subjected them and other female staff to lower pay and delayed advancement.

The negative attitudes of family lawyers towards defending divorce cases and financial disincentives such as the high level of legal costs are no substitute for changing the law to a system of no-fault notifications, according to a major report. It also put paid to the notion that family lawyers push clients towards litigation for their own financial benefit.

Activity by claims management companies in the area of holiday sickness is “much reduced”, the regulator has claimed. The Claims Management Regulator said it made the finding after completing an “intensive audit” and investigation.