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Solicitors’ professional indemnity insurers paid out around £2bn due to negligence claims in the 10 years to 2014, startling new figures released yesterday by the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed. The regulator said that around 142,000 claims were made in that decade, one in five of which was successful.

An ex-solicitor has been found guilty and jailed for five years for five counts of fraud by false representation after he hijacked a law firm’s identity – his second spell in jail for fraud after he previously stole from his own firm’s client account. The conviction came at the end of an 11-day trial.

Placing law firms’ complaints data and insurance claims in the public domain are among the “initial ideas” published today by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to improve transparency in the legal market – but it is not currently planning to mandate firms to publish prices.

The High Court has granted insurance company LV= permission to bring committal proceedings against solicitors from a defunct law firm after two starkly contrasting medical reports emerged in a road traffic case they were handling.

Solicitors who ceded control of their firms to non-lawyers – in one instance they claimed their practice had been taken over by a criminal gang – have been sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. In the first case, it struck off three partners following mortgage frauds that have already cost the profession nearly £3m.

The global legal market is small by comparison with other markets and this is deterring some technology companies from investing in it, but only technology can service the “vast unmet legal need” in the future, according to a leading lawtech commentator.

A group of Conservative MPs will next week lobby justice secretary Liz Truss to press ahead with the proposed personal injury reforms. Last week it emerged that the long-awaited consultation on raising the small claims limit and removing general damages for low-value soft-tissue injuries has been unexpectedly put on the backburner.

Law firms need to radically change their cultures to embrace emerging technologies such as cognitive computing – including suppressing their tendency to be risk averse – according to the head of strategy at a leading London practice.

The Ministry of Justice can get its “house in order” on Brexit, permanent secretary Richard Heaton has promised MPs. The comment came as Mr Heaton told the justice select committee the MoJ hoped to raise £300m from its latest round of 86 court closures, in an attempt to meet further budget cuts.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has made a direct plea to government to use next month’s Autumn Statement to make good on the plan announced in last year’s to grant it full independence from the Law Society.