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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”.

Legal chatbot pioneer Josh Browder has launched a new service – dubbed the first automated law suit – to help those affected by the Equifax security breach bring small claims in the US, and has told Legal Futures that he is planning to bring it to the UK as well.

Almost half of City firms view Brexit as a threat and more than two thirds see other professional services firms as the overwhelming threat among recent entrants to the profession, according to a survey published yesterday. It found that almost a quarter of City firms named Brexit as the biggest challenge to their future success.

The surge in claims against solicitors over their advice to home buyers on ground rent clauses has begun, with 400 issued in less than a year, according to new research. It also identified the discount rate, undersettling and conveyancing fraud as the other big negligence risks facing the solicitors’ profession due to the wider economic environment.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has given strong backing to the Bar Standards Board’s proposal to reduce the standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings from the criminal to the civil standard. “[It] will be fairer on consumers, and it may act as a positive incentive for barristers to deliver good services,” the panel said.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives has become the latest legal regulator to apply to license alternative business structures. Chartered legal executives have been able to set up their own law firms since 2015, but not if they have non-lawyer ownership or investment.

The rise in judge-led reform means that barristers may to start speaking out against those they appear before, the chairman of the Bar Council has said. The Bar had to change its habits and be “prepared, where necessary robustly”, to criticise a proposal from a senior and respected judge.

The many ways in which fraudsters try to trick solicitors, property owners, buyers, sellers, borrowers and lenders have been laid out in new guidance issued jointly by HM Land Registry and the Law Society. Meanwhile, a top London law firm has warned solicitors to beware of the HMRC stamp duty land tax calculator.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic defendants do not trust legal aid solicitors and often enter not guilty pleas against advice as a result, according to a major report. The Lammy Review said BAME defendants often saw duty solicitors as ‘part of the system’ and so pleaded not guilty.