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There have been “frustrations” with the speed of governance reform at the Law Society, its president has admitted as he tried to calm the shock caused by the resignation earlier this month of its chief executive over that issue. But he also claimed the threat of losing its guaranteed funding was being used to “create fear” within the organisation.

The Court of Appeal has emphatically cleared a solicitor of fraud, expressing “some disquiet” at the trial judge’s findings to the contrary in an oil rig drilling case involving a $129m standby letter of credit. “Different legal minds may obviously take different views” on the legal question at the heart of the case, it said.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is planning to require law firms to publish their fees for services such as divorce, wills or conveyancing, it has emerged. In line with the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority, it will also look a few areas of business law, such as commercial leases.

Leading claimant personal injury solicitors recognise that the small claims limit “needs to rise” but have called on the government to increase it to £1,600, rather than £5,000, and also require road traffic accidents to be notified within a year, as part of an alternative package of reforms.

The Law Society’s freedom of information adjudicator has criticised the Solicitor Regulation Authority for giving an “unfortunate impression” that it is not committed to transparency because of the way it handled disclosure requests relating to struck-off solicitor Alan Blacker.

A typical law firm in the future will accommodate a new generation of disruptive technologies, such as virtual assistants, machine learning and automation, but legal services must not lose their human touch, a major Law Society report on technological innovation has urged.

A legal business which employs paralegals to handle straightforward work directly for clients while managing qualified lawyers on the advisory aspects of their case, has been launched by a serial legal services entrepreneur. He describes it as the UK’s first “para-law firm”.

Pioneering alternative business structure Triton Global has been acquired by national law firm DWF in a pre-pack administration deal that saves all 215 jobs. Triton is a multi-disciplinary insurance business combining legal advice, claims administration and loss adjusting that became one of the first ABSs to introduce employee ownership.

A financial health analysis of law firms based on annual accounts has predicted that at least 500 firms are heading for collapse in the next three years, with law firms at greater financial risk than businesses as a whole – but the profession was warned that the toll could be higher still.

The Law Society’s governance troubles – with the resignation of chief executive Catherine Dixon earlier this month – are proof that it is “unsuitable” for any role in the regulation of the profession, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has told the Legal Services Board.