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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.

The Bar Council has called on the Bar Standards Board not to move to an “entirely different system” which will see far smaller groups of people than now make decisions on what to do about barristers accused of misconduct. It said the regulator’s professional conduct committee was “working well” and should not be replaced.

Incopro, an online brand and IP protection business co-founded by media law firm Wiggin, has raised $21m (£16m) from a leading growth equity investor. Incopro – founded in 2012 – is one of a series of ancillary businesses created by Wiggin, the Cheltenham and London-based alternative business structure.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has become the first regulator to announce what service standards and prices it will mandate the firms it regulates to publish online. It is also encouraging its firms to go beyond the minimum regulatory requirements and use the transparency drive to differentiate themselves better and attract clients.

The civil courts should be reformed by introducing human-centred design principles into the courts, which would make them welcoming and easy to navigate for litigants in person, according to new research. This would overturn an evolution that has favoured legal professionals over ordinary court users, and make the whole experience more efficient and less intimidating.

Pioneering alternative business structure Knights is the latest law firm to announce its intention to float on AIM, pledging to make three acquisitions in the next two years as part of its continuing growth strategy. Once it begins trading in late June, it will become the fifth law firm to list, hot on the heels of City firm Rosenblatt.

Over a third of home movers would be prepared to pay more for a “premium customer service” from their conveyancer, according to new research that also charts how local solicitors have lost ground to licensed conveyancers and online operations. It said that many conveyancing firms were not responding quickly enough to “21st century mindsets”.

A criminal defence solicitor has been struck off for dishonestly claiming £7,000 from the legal aid fund and falsifying documents to cover up his mistakes in double-booking advocates – at a time when he said he was suffering from severe depression which led him to drink and take un-prescribed drugs.

An office manager jailed last year for stealing £413,000 from a Newcastle law firm can only pay back £58,000 to its partners, it emerged in court yesterday. Meanwhile, the Crown Court has appointed a receiver to recover a ‘tainted gift’ received by the wife of a jailed solicitor who plundered £1.8m from the estates of dead clients.

Complaining about a barrister’s conduct in a written ruling is usually a better way of a judge highlighting concerns than contacting their head of chambers or regulator, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has said. His Honour Judge Shanks said his experience was that neither of those methods achieved anything.