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Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats yesterday questioned the government’s approach to reforming whiplash claims, although several peers in the House of Lords backed the overall direction of the Civil Liability Bill. The four-hour debate highlighted a number of concerns about the bill, and we have reported proceedings in detail.

Keystone Law – the self-styled ‘challenger’ law firm that listed on AIM late last year – has unveiled strong annual results today, pushing its share price ever higher. The firm reported a 24% increase in revenue to £32m, with profit before tax up 63% to £2.9m. Underlying EBITDA jumped 43% to £3.27m.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to appeal a tribunal’s decision to suspend a solicitor found guilty of sexual assault as being too lenient, Legal Futures can reveal. Alastair Main was suspended for two years, but this was effectively less than a year as it was backdated to when he lost his job following his conviction.

Members of the House of Lords will today begin debating the Civil Liability Bill, with claimant lawyers arguing that new government figures discredit the whiplash reforms it contains. The second reading has also seen an Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist speak out and the Bar Council argue that the bill will not achieve what it intends.

Small and medium-sized law firms will get free help and advice from some of the biggest firms in the country on how to become more inclusive employers under a pilot scheme launched this month by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

City law firm Rosenblatt is to become the fourth law firm to list on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, it announced today. The 19-partner commercial law firm, best known for its litigation work, is to be admitted on 8 May, joining Gateley, Gordon Dadds and Keystone Law.

A host of leading law firms, the Law Society and universities have teamed up with Barclays Bank to launch the most significant lawtech incubator in the UK to date. The ‘Eagle Lab’ will open soon in Notting Hill, in west London, with the aim of creating a centre of excellence.

The legal market has proven “inept” at responding to the needs of vulnerable consumers and its regulators are not coming up with a strategy to tackle the problem, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. The watchdog said it was also concerned that regulators were not thinking about consumer confusion sufficiently as they looked to make the market more flexible.

The link between ethnicity and success on the Bar professional training course and in attaining pupillage is more nuanced than the big gap between white and non-white candidates presented by the Bar Standards Board, the Bar Council has claimed. New research said some ethnic groups performed as well as their white counterparts, while others did not.

The government should set out the definition of whiplash and the levels of compensation claimants will be due on the face of the Civil Liability Bill, rather than leaving them to secondary legislation, so that peers and MPs can understand what they are voting on, a parliamentary committee has said.