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A firm of bailiffs made famous by a long-running TV series has launched an alternative business structure, in part to capitalise on the legal work that follows national exposure. DCB Legal Limited received its licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority earlier this month.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a senior solicitor for dishonestly holding himself out as working for his former firm and falsely stating that he had sent out fewer letters on the firm’s notepaper than he knew to be the case.

A solicitor who confessed to his law firm that he had faked a letter “within hours” of sending it to a client, has been fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Ian Giddings, based at the Warwick office of national family firm Woolley & Co, admitted creating and backdating the letter.

More property transactions and fewer people doing the work have increased conveyancers’ caseloads, but amid mounting pressure their productivity has grown by 70% since 2012, according to a survey. Among other things, it found that in 2016 conveyancers were spending a day and a half less per case and doing one case a week more than four years earlier.

Reports of cybercrime from law firms reached record levels in the first quarter of this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. The figures are contained in the regulator’s latest Risk Outlook, which for the first time includes questionable investment schemes involving solicitors.

A legal tech firm is open source its AI-based document analysis tool next month, in one of the first moves of its kind for the sector. Its co-founder said he believed that the smallest legal tech start-ups could be based on the tool and then “1,000 flowers can bloom”.

The panel of a Bar disciplinary tribunal has taken the highly unusual step of recusing itself after an allegation that it had shown actual or apparent bias against the defendant barrister, Legal Futures can reveal. The decision is the latest twist in a long-running saga involving a barrister who has twice been cleared of other allegations in the past three years.

A lady justice of appeal has berated the Government Legal Department over its defence of a negligence claim brought by a prison officer against the Ministry of Justice, saying its “lack of focus” led to a “huge workload which was wholly disproportionate to the real issues”.

The profession should play an active role in certifying the quality of public legal information so as to help people identify whether they have legal problems, according to the head of an access to justice charity. The call came as the Solicitor General launched a new panel to drive forward legal education initiatives.

The proportion of law firms targeted by scammers has risen sharply over the last year, especially among larger firms, as has the number of practices taking out cyber-insurance, according to new research from the Law Society. The survey on indemnity insurance also showed that a significant minority of brokers continue not to disclose their commission.