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There has been the usual spate of law firm mergers and acquisitions up and down the country coinciding with the end of the traditional indemnity year, including the continuing growth of national crime firm Tuckers and a Scottish firm entering England for the first time.

Offering fixed fees is a sign of entrepreneurial lawyers, according to research among small firms which also found that it helps “cement a better client relationship from the start”. The research, by LexisNexis, found that those offering fixed fees were investing more in processes, technology and marketing.

There is a correlation between a company’s success in litigation and its subsequent stock market performance, legal IT company Premonition has claimed. The US-based start-up, which operates in the UK as well, operates an artificial intelligence system that mines big data to find out which litigators win.

A solicitor-led investment consultancy has sought an alternative business structure licence as part of its plan to expand and exploit what it called a “gap in the market” for lawyers in advisory services. It has two solicitor partners and until now offered unreserved legal activities.

The author of a visual map of the lawtech start-up scene said it revealed the UK has a lower number of new technology ventures relative to the size of the legal market as a whole, compared with other European countries.

Outer Temple Chambers has taken the unprecedented step of setting up what is effectively a separate international law firm, employing a solicitor. Outer Temple International, a Bar Standards Board-regulated entity, has now secured insurance and is set to go live this week.

One Legal – the externally funded alternative business structure that saved leading crime firm Kaim Todner earlier this year – has made its second acquisition as it looks to create a new model for criminal law, Legal Futures can reveal. One Legal is headed by Trevor Howarth, the founder of now-defunct Stobart Barristers.

AIM-listed litigation finance company Burford Capital has finally activated its alternative business structure after hiring a solicitor to act in judgment enforcement matters. Burford Law was licensed in January 2016 but will now start operating after the company hired litigator Tom Evans as its head.

AIM-listed law firm Gateley has launched an employee share scheme that will enable all members of staff to secure up to £500 of shares every month at a discount of 20% on their price. Some 44% of the firm’s 650 staff have signed up for shares since the scheme launched at the end of August.

Significant numbers of new advocates are “weaker than might be hoped on basic knowledge” of ethical rules, a major report has found. The report also found that ethics training before and after qualification was “insufficiently robust or frequent to enable confident ethical practice amongst new advocates”.