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A report from the body that oversees Queen’s Counsel appointments has recommended a raft of changes to encourage women to apply and bring the numbers of female silks nearer to the proportion eligible in the profession. Women appear more reluctant to apply for a number of reasons, it found.

The market for blockchain-backed ‘smart contracts’ should grow quickly, according to a partner at a global law firm, who is already working with the emerging technology. Lee Bacon, a partner at Clyde & Co, made the prediction as his firm launched a consultancy aimed at advising insurers and other clients on them.

The Lord Chancellor, David Lidington, has unexpectedly rejected the Legal Services Board’s recommendation that chartered accountants should be able to handle litigation, advocacy and legal instruments in taxation work. It is the first time the Ministry of Justice has rejected a regulatory extension of this nature,

Pioneering alternative business structure (ABS) Genus Law – which started life with the somewhat bolder name Brilliant Law – closed last month, with its book of business sold to fellow ABS Alpaca Law, it has emerged. Meanwhile, another groundbreaking ABS, Co-operative Legal Services, announced a rise in turnover but dip in profits for the first half of 2017.

The right to justice should be enshrined in an Act of Parliament to ensure that nobody is denied legal assistance because they cannot afford it, according to the final report of the Bach Commission. It said problems with the justice system were so wide that only legislation was sufficient to guarantee fundamental rights

HM Courts and Tribunals Service has delayed the start of the flexible operating hours pilot until next February, its chief executive announced today. Susan Acland-Hood also made it clear that she was listening to the concerns raised by the legal profession about both the current problems with listing and how flexible hours might work.

A district judge has explained how he had to throw a McKenzie Friend out of his court after she disrupted proceedings and threatened complaints against him and the other side’s solicitors. Mary Bennett was aiding the husband in the final hearing of a wife’s application for financial remedies in a divorce.

The boss of a claims management company specialising in holiday sickness has accused solicitors of failing to vet cases for cold calling and fraud and “living in a world of denial”. Richard Conroy, a food scientist and founder of sickholiday.com, told solicitors: “You can do a far better job of vetting the cases coming to you.”

The owner of a claims management company fined £175,000 for cold-calling consumers and described as demonstrating “the worst excesses of the industry”, has now been banned as a director for six years. The Information Commissioner’s Office received 5,535 complaints in the space of just four months.

A law firm network was launched last month aimed at smaller practices and has already held two meetings, it has emerged. Hexagon Legal Network was set up by six sole practitioners, including a former Sole Practitioners Group chair, Kent solicitor Hilary Underwood.