Latest news

A partner who altered a client file in an effort to conceal a mistake that made an estate liable for inheritance tax has agreed to leave the profession to halt her prosecution before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. We also report on the ex-solicitor and judge jailed for forging a will and other disciplinary matters.

Artificial intelligence will likely be better at predicting the outcome of cases than the most experienced QCs, the Lord Chief Justice has warned. He also flagged changes that would see unbundling, outsourcing, and lesser-qualified staff assisted by technology taking over some of the work now done by lawyers.

Three solicitors, including a former senior partner and managing partner, have been suspended by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for their roles in a collapsed Brazilian property investment scheme. It comes in the wake of a major SRA campaign to warn the public about solicitors giving credibility to high-yield investment schemes.

Law firm employees could be clamouring to take anti-money laundering training, if a business that has applied computer game technology to training in a subject not normally described as ‘fun’ successfully gains traction. In the latest of our features on lawtech start-ups, we profile a company using games as the model for designing training courses.

The first private equity fund to invest in a high street law firm that has now put money into a ‘dispersed’ law firm has said it is “business as usual” despite Brexit and it would welcome further approaches from solicitors.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has launched an investigation into whether Slater & Gordon’s accounts have been falsified, it emerged last night. In particular, it is looking to determine whether financial records and accounts over a 22-month period were deliberately falsified or manipulated.

More than half of claimant personal injury (PI) law firms will be forced to shut down or look for other work if the government’s proposed reforms go through, a survey has found – and Lord Justice Jackson’s separate review of fixed recoverable costs could then put the rest out of business.

Plans by the Ministry of Justice to impose fixed-term contracts on fee- paid judges could be unlawful, the Bar Council has warned. The move has also been strongly attacked by the Law Society, which said solicitors could in future see judicial appointment as a gamble with their careers at their firms.

Hudgells Solicitors has opened up a new front in the battle over the government’s proposed PI reforms by saying that there is a far better and easier way to reform rehabilitation provision that does not involve “the unexpected and dangerous reforms hidden away at the back of its recent consultation”.

The UK government must secure a high level of access to the single market, with a “clear and sensible transition period” to minimise the damage to legal services, TheCityUK has warned. Without it, the pressure group said, there would be a “high risk [of] considerable losses in financial and reputational terms to the legal services sector over the long term”.