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A local authority in Surrey is eyeing up an alternative business structure so it can “commercialise” its legal services in the wake of a partnership with another council coming to an end. Our latest ABS round-up also includes a virtual firm looking for investment to expand, a major deal for a leading probate ABS and a heavyweight appointment.

Two partners found by the High Court to have displayed “manifest incompetence” in accepting £573,000 lent to their law firm by the controversial Axiom Legal Financing Fund, have been respectively suspended and fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

A bankruptcy judge has set aside statutory demands worth nearly £800,000 issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority against the founder of collapsed firm Blavo & Co, which were to cover the cost of shutting down what was the UK’s leading mental health practice.

Innovative chambers Clerksroom is building Billy.Bot, a ‘robot junior clerk’ that will do the work of a traditional barristers’ clerk and also provide basic legal information to online users, Legal Futures can reveal. That is, except for taking a cut of barristers’ earnings.

A High Court judge has overturned a decision by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to strike off a former partner of national law firm Bond Dickinson, because the distinction it drew between acting without integrity and being dishonest meant the whole case against him was flawed.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal struck off 35% more solicitors in the last calendar year than the one before, its annual report has revealed. Meanwhile, the legal costs awarded to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for bringing the prosecutions rocketed from £1.7m to over £3m – an increase of 76%.

A paralegal who secured a job on the back of a false CV and later faked letters to hide the fact that he had missed a court date has effectively been thrown out of the profession. Among other things, he claimed to have attended Yale University, whereas in fact he had just submitted a research paper for the law review, which was not published.

The Legal Services Board has persuaded all the legal regulators to produce straightforward annual statements on their costs so that practitioners can clearly see how their money is being spent, it has emerged. As a result, the LSB has shut down its cost of regulation project and publish its own statement of costs.

The Legal Ombudsman’s budget is set to rise for the first time since its creation – by £1m – with claims management companies not paying the case fees they have been charged the key cause and more expected to follow as they continue to go out of business.

Lawyers should control the supply of “so-called standard electronic documents”, such as confidentiality deeds or contracts, a report has suggested. The report also highlighted the ethical and regulatory issues raised by artificial intelligence.