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The government and insurance industry are being “disingenuous” to insist that the small claims limit has not been increased since 1991, a leading trade union has insisted USDAW also said that insurers’ argument that “damages inflation” justified a £5,000 limit for road traffic accident cases was plain wrong.

Personal injury lawyers, conveyancers and other solicitors who arrange or advise on insurance policies have been given a stay of execution from complying with new rules under a European directive that was due to come into force last Friday.

Another solicitor has been struck off for his involvement in the Axiom Legal Financing Fund, while his junior partner has been suspended indefinitely after a tribunal found that he had bullied her. The firm borrowed just shy of £6m, but its total liability to the fund was more than £10m, none of which has apparently been repaid.

Struck-off solicitor Phil Shiner has had his bankruptcy extended by five years after he gifted away nearly £500,000 worth of assets to family members before declaring himself bankrupt and was unable to pay £6.5m back to his creditors. The Official Receiver is now in the process of selling his house.

The latest ‘man versus machine’ contest, which pitted human lawyers against artificial intelligence technology, has shown the machine to be superior in both accuracy and speed. But the best-performing lawyers exceeded even the AI, although it was claimed that they did so in unnatural circumstances for a busy lawyer.

The Bar Standards Board has backtracked on many of the elements of its plan to force barristers to publish prices and service information – most notably by suggesting that instead of putting hourly rates on their websites, chambers should simply have to tell potential clients to contact them for a quote.

An experienced private client lawyer who forged a grant of probate has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He was acting for the estate of a woman who had lacked mental capacity and had two disabled sons living in care.

A Kent law firm was negligent for failing to advise properly on a mortgage and valuation report, but this did not cause a couple in Canterbury to buy a house suffering from subsidence, a circuit judge has ruled. He said it was not the firm’s duty to “advise about structural matters when there was a structural survey available”.

It is “beyond argument” that a solicitor sentenced to any substantial term of imprisonment should be struck off, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division said yesterday as the High Court increased an indefinite suspension imposed on a former senior Crown prosecutor convicted of the attempted murder of his wife to a strike-off.

Law firm consolidator Metamorph Law has unveiled its first acquisition of 2018 with a deal to buy leading Shropshire general practice Terry Jones Solicitors, which has a turnover of around £5m. Following four acquisitions last year, Metamorph said this latest addition meant it was looking to generate a fee income in excess of £23m in 2018.