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The law firm owned by global insurance giant Markel relaunched this week with a product that unbundles legal advice for small and medium-sized businesses. LHS Solicitors offers a £50 ‘quick review’ service that allows clients to post relevant documents online, if necessary, and then receive an advice call within two hours.

A global study into a key element behind artificial intelligence (AI) and using big data in the legal sphere has received the green light and €1.2m of European funding. Meanwhile, in a related development, Deloitte, has undertaken what is thought to be the world’s largest deployment so far of AI in contract analysis.

The first trial of online dispute resolution (ODR) in the UK’s courts and tribunals will introduce a concept known as the “online continuous hearing”, it has emerged, with the Senior President of Tribunals urging a change in perception of litigation from an adversarial dispute to “a problem to be solved”.

Helping to enhance public understanding of the law will “unlock demand for legal services”, solicitors have been advised as part of a new push to promote public legal education (PLE). It came as a high-powered non-partisan group of MPs and peers was formed to promote PLE.

One Legal’s acquisition of Kaim Todner sets the foundation for further deals on the back of “significant investment” it has received to expand, the alternative business structure’s founder has said. Trevor Howarth, who shot to prominence as the boss of now-defunct Stobart Barristers, also did not resile from his controversial description of criminal legal aid firms as “very wounded animals ready to die”.

Software or data analysis techniques that could help flag up fraudulent legal aid claims or predict the likelihood of someone re-offending are outcomes the Ministry of Justice is hoping could come from a hackathon it will hold later this month.

South west law firm Stephens Scown is to become a pioneering alternative business structure at the end of his month, which will allow it to remain a partnership while introducing employee ownership. Managing partner Robert Camp he hoped it would provide a “way forward” for other law firms.

An alternative business structure to be launched by the Royal College of Nursing and Cardiff-based NewLaw next month is to limit its offering to personal injury, it has emerged, making it a markedly different offering from that set up last year by the British Medical Association.

Pekama, a legal tech company with investment from law firm Taylor Vinters, has launched a mobile app which it believes will trigger a “big change” in the way lawyers communicate. Zeev Fisher, the chief executive of Pekama and a solicitor, said the app had been tested by three law firms.

One Legal – the alternative business structure originally set up in 2013 to work alongside the now-defunct Stobart Barristers – has shot back into the limelight by acquiring well-known criminal defence law firm Kaim Todner.