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An expanding team of more than 100 HM Land Registry lawyers dealt with 100,000 legal enquiries last year, although the organisation has stepped up digital reform efforts aimed at automating key parts of the registry’s work. For instance, the piloting of a digital mortgage service, part of a plan to enable paper-free legal deeds, will be widened later this year.

The student entrepreneur who developed a ground-breaking free chatbot ‘robot lawyer’ to help people challenge parking tickets is working on an ambitious plan to automate the divorce process with the assistance of a team of salaried paralegals, it has emerged. Josh Browder has obtained funding for legal support from a Silicon Valley venture capital fund.

A barrister who made failed to disclose that he had previously run a law firm shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority before he applied to be called to the Bar, has been disbarred. Meanwhile, the SDT has struck off a former partner at London firm Hamlins for forging and backdating six letters.

The legal services market is “at a standstill”, with consumers still relying “too heavily on reputation” and reluctant to shop around, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. At the same time, however, their satisfaction with the advice they received was high.

Lawyers acting for mentally ill clients and dementia sufferers have been praised in surveys commissioned by the Legal Services Board on the needs of vulnerable consumers, but some did find it hard to deal with solicitors. The majority of dementia sufferers said their experience of seeing a solicitor had been “extremely positive”.

The growing ranks of legal bloggers commenting on often sensitive court rulings have been given comfort after a libel claim brought against a barrister who wrote about one on his personal website was struck out. Ben Amunwa warned that “lawyers on social media are more exposed to claims like this than ever before” but said the decision strengthened their position.

The High Court has rejected the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s bid to increase the sanction imposed on a solicitor convicted of transferring criminal property after being taken in by a charismatic conman posing as the Pope’s banker. She was fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The Law Society has praised the government’s “decisive action” in introducing fixed costs in holiday sickness claims, and put the blame for fraudulent cases on claims management companies. Meanwhile, ABTA has urged the industry to maintain the momentum on its ‘Stop Sickness Scams’ campaign.

The Bar Standards Board is considering the impact of the HM Courts and Tribunal Service’s proposals for longer sitting hours on the diversity of the profession, the only legal regulator so far to take a step, however tentative, into an issue that has generated bitter opposition from the profession.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to change its indemnity insurance rules to make it easier for law firms to switch regulator, it announced yesterday. In a bid to encourage competition, the SRA will ditch the requirement that firms switching to another approved regulator have to buy run-off cover.