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Making membership of the Inns of Court optional for barristers would disadvantage those with the least “social capital”, the Bar Council has warned. It strongly defended the role of the Inns, the minimum 12-month period for pupillages, and compulsory Inns of Court dinners for students.

National insurance law firm BLM has teamed up with three professors from the London School of Economics in a two-year research project to create models that predict the cost, length and outcome of litigation. AI will be an “important part” of the partnership, but it aims to bled technology with actuarial knowledge and ‘decision science’.

Law firms have taken advantage of a soft insurance market to secure 18-month professional indemnity insurance deals at a “very good” rate, a report has found. More firms were asking about additional cover to protect solicitors against defence costs in disciplinary proceedings, in the wake of the Leigh Day case.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel is on the hunt for a new chair after the incumbent jumped ship after just a year to become a member of the Office for Legal Complaints, the body that oversees the Legal Ombudsman. Meanwhile, the Law Society has named the members of its new main board, a key part of its new governance structure.

The government plans to introduce its whiplash reforms in April 2019, it emerged today. The Motor Accident Solicitors Society said it has today been told that ministers have agreed for the personal injury reforms to be implemented from that date, with an initial focus on RTA.

The High Court has ordered the Solicitors Regulation Authority to make a fresh judgment of a would-be solicitor’s character and suitability to join the profession after finding that it had wrongly denied her an oral hearing to explain an issue that it decided showed dishonesty.

The next chief executive of the Law Society could earn £300,000 after the job was finally advertised – more than a year since the last one quit. The post comes with a salary of up to £230,000, a bonus of up to 30% and a defined contribution pension scheme.

Trust corporations wanting to act as property and affairs deputies for incapacitated people must be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to gain immediate approval, the Court of Protection has said.

A solicitor convicted of sexual assault did not fail to uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled in a decision that will have implications for future prosecutions of those with criminal convictions.

The English lawyer behind a bid to provide legal backing to deals involving both the virtual world of blockchain and real world commerce, has forecast that in a decade most global trade will be governed by arbitration agreements coupled with smart contracts.