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The Legal Services Consumer Panel has warned of “information overload” as legal regulators struggle to come to terms with the demands of the Competition and Markets Authority for transparency on prices and complaints.

The justice select committee has described the impact of Brexit on legal services as “a cause for concern, but not hyberbole”, in a report published today. MPs said that maintaining cross-border legal practice rights and access to “valuable regulations” on inter-state commercial law should be two of the four main justice aims for government negotiators.

The increase in whiplash claims at a time of falling road traffic accidents and improving car safety means that “cases are obviously exaggerated to some extent, and perhaps fraudulent”, justice minister Sir Oliver Heald said yesterday as he defended the government’s “moderate” personal injury reform proposals during the second reading of the Prisons and Courts Bill.

The value of public access work carried out by barristers as a proportion of the profession’s income grew six-fold over just five years, according to new figures seen by Legal Futures. They come as a Bar Standards Board review of public access found it was working well, but had areas for improvement.

NAHL plc – the legal marketing business that owns National Accident Helpline – has reported a 15% increase in profits despite a small fall in turnover in 2016 that would have been significantly larger had the non-personal injury elements of its business not performed well.

A solicitor with nearly 25 years’ experience has been struck off for dishonestly using client funds to prop up his business and failing to pass on to an RTA client the £73,500 due to her, after a “perfect storm” of circumstances put his firm in difficulties.

The government’s personal injury reforms will boost insurers’ profits by up to £700m a year as its estimate of how much of the savings will be passed back to motorists in lower premiums is “implausibly high”, an economics consultancy has predicted ahead of today’s second reading of the Prisons and Courts Bill.

A High Court has referred back to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal the case of two partners he found to have displayed “manifest incompetence” in accepting £573,000 lent to their law firm by the controversial Axiom Legal Financing Fund.

Peers have expressed concern about the impact that Brexit is already having on the UK’s legal services market and urged the government to take action. It came in a report that warned that alternatives to the existing framework of civil justice cooperation “must be in place before the UK’s withdrawal is completed”.

MPs on the justice select committee have launched a “short” inquiry into the personal injury reforms contained in the Prisons and Courts Bill. The announcement comes ahead of the bill’s second reading – during which the principles behind it will be debated – on Monday.