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New competition since the introduction of alternative business structures, along with client demands is changing the face of the legal market, research has suggested, with the number of ABSs now topping 1,000. It also showed that 44% of law firms are now incorporated companies, while the number of traditional partnerships shrinking to only 17%.

A solicitor convicted of contacting her imprisoned client by mobile phone – sending him 102 text messages in less than three months – has been suspended from practice. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that she was under intense competitive pressure after setting up her own firm and had come to use texting as a convenient way to contact clients.

Legal professionals will escape the artificial intelligence revolution relatively unscathed compared to other occupations, with high educational achievement being a key factor, according to a major report on the long-term impact of automation on jobs.

Listed law firm Gordon Dadds has made its third acquisition in a month in buying Cardiff firm Thomas Simon. The acquisition vehicle is paying £1.875m plus an amount related to net tangible assets. If all the turnover targets are met for the four firms it has bought since listing, Gordon Dadds will have paid around £20m.

A solicitor has been “severely reprimanded” by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after he compounded an error made by his firm 15 years previously when it failed to follow instructions over a property transfer. It is not a sanction that is seen any more but the SRA said it was available when the events took place a decade ago.

Applications were up in the latest round of an accelerator programme for lawtech start-ups run by a London law firm, with smart contracts among technologies of particular interest, it has emerged. Six companies will win through to work with Mishcon de Reya from the “concept through to revenue-generating stage”.

An online legal advice website has created an artificial intelligence-backed robot that it claims has been trained to answer questions on consumer rights law in natural language using one of the world’s largest datasets.

Legal regulators have urged the Legal Services Board to use its review of the internal governance rules to give them greater independence from their representative bodies. The Solicitors Regulation Authority said the rewrite of the rules should allow it to become a “separate legal entity” from the Law Society.

The principal solicitor of controversial Bolton personal injury firm Asons is to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over multiple allegations, including the payment of illegal referral fees and false costs claims, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed.

A partner at a City law firm who said a client had signed documents in his presence when she was actually abroad has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. It said the solicitor had been “pushed into a corner”, taking over a conveyancing matter where completion was fixed and there was “pressure to meet the date”.