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Lawyers should be able to replace any work lost to the online court with other cases, the government said yesterday, although it did not suggest how this would be done. The blithe statement came in an impact assessment published alongside the Prisons and Courts Bill.

Technology is displacing lawyers’ jobs at a slower pace than often thought, with most areas of legal practice at only low or moderate threat from encroachment by software, according to a study. It also called for effective professional regulation of legal technologies to protect clients and the values of legal systems.

Leading legal aid law firm Duncan Lewis has been sanctioned for breaching the rule that prohibits paying referral fees for legally aided clients. The rebuke and £2,000 fine is the most that the Solicitors Regulation Authority can do without referring the firm to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The personal injury industry has 19 months to prepare for the reforms announced by the government today, with the newly published damages tariff showing that those with the most minor injuries arising from a road traffic accident – and not just whiplash – will receive just £225 in compensation. We highlight the key decisions in the detailed response to the whiplash consultation.

Stowe Family Law – which claims to be the largest specialist family law firm in the country – has become the latest legal practice to accept private equity investment after signing a deal with mid-market backer Livingbridge. The plan is to build a “larger national footprint”, opening up to 30 additional offices over the next five years – it currently has 10.

The small claims limit will rise to £5,000 for whiplash cases, but only £2,000 for other personal injury claims, the Ministry of Justice announced today in a bid “to crack down on the compensation culture epidemic” – less than seven weeks after its consultation closed. There will be a fixed tariff to cap whiplash compensation pay-outs.

A project to create the first online dispute resolution system for divorcing and separating couples in the UK has been put on hold, Legal Futures has been told. Relate, the country’s largest provider of relationship support, received no government funding for the project, and instead relied on private backers, including Google.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) has unveiled major governance reform that it said prepares the body for the government making legal regulators entirely independent. Crucially, it said the changes would ensure that CILEx continues to be viable as a professional body without receiving any income from practising fees.

The first signs of an online court will be visible in tribunals by September, online processes will be extended to a wide range of civil court proceedings by May 2020, and the reforms will be incremental, according to one of the judges in charge.

Law firms must comply with data requests even if the purpose for seeking the documents is assisting in litigation, the Court of Appeal has ruled. Overturning the High Court, Lady Justice Arden held that a data request was not invalid if made for the “collateral purpose of assisting in litigation”.