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The Solicitors Regulation Authority has refused a request to disclose all the correspondence it had with the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice over the Leigh Day case as it announced its intention to appeal the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision to clear the firm and three of its lawyers.

London law firm and alternative business structure Mishcon de Reya has invested cash in two of the six lawtech start-ups that its incubator, MDR LAB, chose from among a crowded field earlier this year. Mishcon also announced yesterday that it would run a similar competition in 2018.

Billy Bot, the ‘robot junior clerk’, is now managing up to 100 new instructions a day from solicitors and members of the public, agreeing fees, booking barristers, checking for conflicts and even making the coffee. The time the system saves has already meant that the clerks at Clerksroom have to work fewer hours than before, with no cut in salary.

LegalBeagles, the decade-old consumer law forum, has launched an ‘all of market’ comparison website after raising nearly £1m in seed funding for the venture. It has pulled in open data from the Solicitors Regulation Authority to list every law firm in the country, including contact details.

Three quarters of law firms are still unprepared for the EU general data protection regulation which comes into force next May, potentially opening them up to large penalties, according to new research. It also found that one in five law firms admitted to experiencing an attempted cyber attack in the last month.

US firm Locke Lord and its insurer have already paid out millions of pounds to settle claims brought by investors who lost money in the dubious investment schemes a former partner ran through the firm, it has emerged. Some £21m passed through the client account of its London office as part of the schemes.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has made unprecedented public criticism of the Solicitors Regulation Authority over how it presented last week’s decision to fine US law firm Locke Lord a record £500,000. It accused the regulator of issuing “inaccurate and misleading quotations” to the media.

A solicitor who “sold himself to greed” was last week sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in a crime gang which committed a £108m tax fraud. Mr Justice Edis said he was used as general counsel to the scheme, “in particular to deal with the parts which were too dishonest to be shown to any honest solicitor”.

A pioneering US law firm that only acts for cannabis industry operators is set to launch an office in the UK. Denver-based Hoban Law Group announced this week that it will open four offices in the EU by late autumn and two offices in Latin America by spring of 2018.

The Court of Appeal has agreed to hear the case of a personal injury law firm that lost a £4.5m claim against a legal expenses insurance underwriting agency that the expected number of referrals did not materialise.