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Law firms need to guard against the type of cybercrime called ‘CEO fraud’, according to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The fraud involves spoof e-mails apparently sent in the name of a senior manager to accounts staff authorising urgent cash transfers.

Dr Alan Blacker – the solicitor who has found himself at the centre of constant attention since a judge in 2014 described him as dressing “like something out of Harry Potter” – has failed in his bid to challenge the Law Society’s freedom of information code and stop it releasing information about him.

Online dispute resolution such as that used for low-value disputes by eBay could be the only way of ensuring access to justice in moderate-sized claims in future – but the Bar Council is trying to find an alternative that retains hearings, according to the president of the Supreme Court.

Two solicitors originally fined £15,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for their involvement in operating tax avoidance schemes have been suspended for three years at a new hearing – although the Solicitors Regulation Authority had been pushing for strike-offs.

Alternative business structures (ABS) make up just 4% of all solicitors’ firms but contributed 11% of the profession’s turnover, research has revealed. The Law Society’s annual statistical report, found ABSs were spread broadly across the different turnover bands, with around 50 of them having income in excess of £10m.

A regional law firm based in Peterborough has taken on the big referral networks by setting up a niche scheme of its own. BUCKLESconnect, launched this month, specialises in advice on French and Spanish law, planning and construction, and contentious probate.

Only a change in the law would allow the Legal Ombudsman to cover complaints from consumers of unregulated law firms, the chair of the organisation’s governing body has said as he called on paralegals to campaign for access to the redress scheme.

The evidence to date has not backed up the critics of alternative business structures, the American Bar Association has said as it announced it is to revisit the merits of allowing them just three years after its last investigation kept the door firmly closed.

A solicitor has avoided an appearance before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after accepting a rebuke for failing to report his firm’s “serious financial difficulties”. The firm owed both the taxman and its bank hundreds of thousands of pounds.

A family law barrister who told his chambers that he was acting for a lay client pro bono, and then tried to hide the e-mail trail that proved the client had actually paid him more than £15,000, has been reprimanded and suspended, among several recent Bar disciplinary rulings.