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The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has warned that it will “reconsider whether it wishes to remain as a legal services regulator” if the government insists that regulators are fully independent from their professional bodies. The long-awaited consultation on this is said to be imminent.

City solicitors, regional solicitors, consumers and the Law Society have all pushed back at the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s plans to reduce the two years that students have to spend in workplace training before qualifying.

Commercial law firms need to adopt a “redesigned approach to legal services”, including “paraprofessionals, technologists, information specialists, process managers and others” as well as lawyers, a major report has argued.

RSM has become the largest firm of accountants outside of the Big Four to launch a legal practice with an alternative business structure licence. The UK’s seventh largest provider of audit, tax and consulting services – which has revenues approaching £300m a year – will target mid-tier and owner-managed businesses with RSM Legal.

Department for Transport statistics show that the government is using “misleading” figures on the number of injuries caused road traffic accidents to push forward its persona injury reforms, undermining one of the key arguments for them, the Motor Accident Solicitors Society has claimed.

Leading London law firm and alternative business structure Mishcon de Reya yesterday announced the creation of an incubator for lawtech start-ups, with the founder saying it was less about investment than helping to change the firm’s culture to embrace technology.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has had to increase its provision for general insurance claims by around £45m for the next financial year, because of the failures of Enterprise Insurance and Gable Insurance AG, it has emerged, while it is still paying out for other insurers that used to back solicitors.

A senior judge has accused solicitors of “blackmailing” the immigration tribunal in an extraordinary attack that also branded their conduct as “disgraceful” and “shameful” in not pursuing the appeals they had lodged.He also warned that some barristers had wrongly seen their role as protecting their instructing solicitors.

US law firms will have less incentive to employ UK-qualified lawyers as a way to access European market and the UK solicitor title will become less desirable after a hard Brexit, the Law Society has warned. In any event, transitional arrangements to ensure continuity if negotiations are not concluded with two years after article 50 is triggered are essential,

Parliament could harness the power of technology to provide a system to lawmakers that gives them the ability to test speculatively the knock-on effects of legislative changes while they are considering bills, according to IT guru Professor Richard Susskind.