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HM Courts and Tribunals Service is to start hosting digital family court bundles centrally next year as part of its project to digitise the courts, it has emerged in a briefing sent to family judges. Moving from manual paper bundles to digital bundles in the family courts is widely seen as the best way to eliminate errors and reduce costs.

A leading north-west law firm has been ordered to pay £68,000 in VAT for electronic local authority property searches it procured from an agency, after a tribunal ruled that they should not have been treated as disbursements. The case, in which the Law Society unsuccessfully intervened, could have significant repercussions for many conveyancing firms.

A contract review technology company incubated by Cambridge-based law firm Taylor Vinters today launched an artificial intelligent product that it claims is on average 60 times faster and 30% cheaper than traditional paralegals.

A legal comparison website has gone live with its bespoke platform with the demand for such services in flux. The relaunch of MyLegalAdviser comes in the wake of The Law Superstore being sold last month. It is the brainchild of Alex Boothman, a one-time private client solicitor.

London and Manchester firm Neumans – which was shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority following a referral by the Court of Appeal – has gone into administration. It comes just a few weeks after the firm lost its bid to overturn the intervention.

The first sign of action to implement governance reform has emerged from the Law Society, which is recruiting a non-executive chair for its new main board. The reforms process has largely been carried out behind closed doors for over a year, but some details have crept out in the job description for the new role, which will pay £42,800 a year for two days a week.

Enid Rowlands has been reappointed as chair of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s board for one more year as it begins recruiting three new members. Ms Rowlands, who became the regulator’s first lay chair in 2015, will now continue until December 2018. Her reappointment was confirmed by an independent panel.

The government yesterday rejected attempts by peers to ban cold-calling by claims management companies, and also bring medical reporting organisations and credit hire companies within the regulatory scope of the Financial Conduct Authority.

Law firms embracing artificial intelligence are expected to create new business models to pass on the benefits to clients, research by City giant Herbert Smith Freehills has suggested. The way trainees learn about the law will also change and may reshape in the traditional pyramid shape of the large firms, it said.

The row between Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Law Society over the former’s plan to allow solicitors to practise from unregulated firms has stepped up a notch, with the SRA saying “it is hardly surprising that those who are already operating in the legal market are against increasing competition”.