Latest news

A European legal services provider specialising in advising tech companies has launched a prototype of what it calls the first business-to-business legal chatbot and, continuing its rapid expansion, plans to open a London office at the end of the year.

A team of 11 partners and 22 other commercial lawyers has left troubled Slater & Gordon for BLM as it looks to expand further beyond its core insurance law specialism. Meanwhile, a group of internal shareholders at AIM-listed law firm Gateley have sold £10m worth of shares.

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected the case of a solicitor who said the Solicitors Regulation Authority deprived him of the chance to challenge the decision to close down his law firm. Yesterday’s ruling came nearly four years after the solicitor had lodged his case.

Three partners whose supervision failure led to a trusted paralegal stealing £400,000 from their firm’s clients have accepted rebukes and fines instead of being referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The paralegal took most of the money through a stamp duty land tax scam.

The Legal Services Board has been warned against trying to force the introduction of the civil standard of proof in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal without proper consultation. The Law Society said it was “inappropriate” for the board to use performance assessments of the regulators it oversees to require them to introduce a lower standard.

A London and Cape Town-based law tech start-up that provides companies with tailored regulatory compliance advice, has raised just over $1m (£740,000) in a seed funding round that included investment from the global law firm Dentons’ business accelerator, Nextlaw Labs.

A law firm compliance officer who stole more than £500,000 from her law firm after being caught up in an online “romance scam” with what she thought was an American serviceman, has accepted a ban from working again in the solicitors’ profession.

David Bott, whose law firm has led the way in handling huge numbers of low-value flight delay compensation claims, said last week the government’s planned tariff scheme for personal injury cases would force him out of the market even if he adopted the same approach for them.

A large north of England debt collection agency has launched an alternative business structure to bring work in-house after commercial clients demanded a “seamless cradle to grave service”. The aim is “to continue the service that we already supply but do it from our internal resources rather than through partnerships with law firms”.

The Law Society has hit out at the latest raft of reforms proposed yesterday by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and particularly the idea of granting ‘freelance’ solicitors the ability to deliver reserved legal services without being either a registered sole practitioner or part of a law firm.