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Sheffield law firm SSB Law has left the QualitySolicitors network to focus on its own brand instead at a time when it says “the traditional law firm approach has a limited future”. It said it joined because “there was a basis for a national brand” but over time there was “an increasing conflict” with its own brand.

The Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) – the centralised test proposed for would-be practitioners – will be split into two stages, with the first consisting mainly of computer-based questions, the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed yesterday.

Legal executives are increasingly less likely to want to train as solicitors, switching to a trainee contract after having been a paralegal can involve a decrease in contact with clients, a major survey has found. The research said workplace experience helps to develop the competences needed to be a solicitor.

The Bar Standards Board has backed a more flexible, outcomes-based continuing professional development regime, despite the fears of some board members that it would degenerate into a “paper exercise”. The move follows a consultation exercise to which only one individual barrister, along with six organisations, responded.

In what is being hailed as a significant victory for conveyancers, a law firm and estate agency have defeated a claim brought against them after it turned out that the seller they acted for was a fraudster. The fraud only came to light when the real owner walked past his property and saw builders ripping out the kitchen.

The use of artificial intelligence is more widespread in the law than in other sectors, and IT chiefs see more applications for it in the future, a survey has found. It said that 55% of senior IT decision makers in law firms have adopted predictive coding and 48% machine learning technologies.

PwC – the first of the ‘big four’ accountants to gain an alternative business structure (ABS) licence – has become a true multi-disciplinary practice by merging its connected law firm into the wider business, in a move that has been welcomed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, is trialing software that helps to predict the likely course, cost, length and outcome of litigation, Legal Futures can reveal. The strategic adviser to its NextLaw Labs subsidiary said that so far its lawyers have been “really impressed” with the results.

A trainee solicitor who misled clients that their claims were being progressed when they had actually been struck out, and also sought to mislead the court, has accepted a rebuke and £1,000 fine to avoid a referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Law firms are missing a key opportunity to differentiate themselves against online providers of residential conveyancing because they fail to deal with telephone enquiries properly, a report that includes three years of research in has found.