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Nextlaw Labs – the tech venture launched by global law firm Dentons – has joined with London lawtech community Legal Geek to tour European capitals in search of the best legal technology. So far, a team of lawyers and technologists has visited Amsterdam and Berlin, and will visit Brussels this week and Paris next week, before returning to London’s Canary Wharf.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has struck off a solicitor for dishonestly backdating enduring powers of attorney and claiming to have witnessed signatures “to save clients money” after an unblemished career of more than 40 years. He also failed to return money to a client for at least six years and used some of it for the benefit of another client.

A law firm that gave a client an assurance that it would not act for his ex-wife, but later handled two small matters for her, did not breach its fiduciary duty to him and could claim for unpaid fees, the Court of Appeal has ruled. It also found that the firm had the power to retain a lien over his files until he paid.

A fee-earner who signed lasting powers of attorney in the names of her clients and misled the Office of the Public Guardian has accepted a rebuke, £1,000 fine and ban on working for law firms in the future. Meanwhile, a solicitor and a barrister separately convicted of drink driving have also been sanctioned.

A clerk who pursued personal injury claims against the wishes of his clients has been banned from working for law firms by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Michael Davis said he was acting “in accordance with office procedures” and was managing up to 400 live cases at any one time.

The new Lord Chancellor needs to announce whether the “flawed” Prisons & Courts Bill is to be reintroduced, his Labour shadow said today. Richard Burgon said that one of David Lidington’s most urgent tasks was to reaffirm the Conservatives’ manifesto commitment “not to meddle” with the Human Rights Act during Brexit.

Many law schools are teaching law “as it was in the 1970s”, Professor Richard Susskind, IT adviser to the Lord Chancellor, has said. Professor Susskind said there was “little regard” for technology or artificial intelligence, leaving law graduates “not just ill-prepared for legal work as it is today, but very ill-prepared for how it will be tomorrow”.

The low level of external investment in law firms since alternative business structures were allowed more than five years ago “may be a symptom of weak competition in the market overall”, a Legal Services Board report has suggested. There are also cultural and management factors, it found.

The Solicitors Qualifying Exam could be postponed beyond its launch date of 2020, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has admitted. In a further development, the regulator has said it was possible that the all-powerful central assessor of the new exam could also be a course provider.

A direct access barrister has received his fifth suspension – for working during one of his previous suspensions. It comes as two barristers are disbarred after being jailed for fraud and the Solicitors Regulation Authority supports move to reduce the standard of proof at Bar disciplinary tribunals.