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The average price of a standard will from a law firm has fallen from £124 to £118 over the last year, new research has indicated. The report, by IRN Research, warned that a highly competitive market had become even tougher with the arrival of accountants and chartered legal executives.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has taken the unusual step of restoring a solicitor’s practising certificate after discovering he was not a partner in a law firm that was the subject of an intervention.

A barrister who admitted that he had talked to jurors at Basildon Railway Station after a trial has been reprimanded and fined £300 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal. Mohammed Omar Faruk said the incident was unintentional.

Insurance specialist Horwich Farrelly has recruited the entire Greenwoods large and complex personal injury team, among a total of seven partners and 36 other staff, from Parabis. Meanwhile Fletchers has revealed its ambition to be a top 100 firm by 2018.

The Royal College of Nursing is planning to follow the British Medical Association in setting up a law firm, it has emerged. Like the BMA, the RCN – which represents over 400,000 nurses – has chosen Cardiff-based NewLaw as its partner.

Abolishing the status of QC should now be seriously considered in the light of research that shows male Oxbridge-educated junior barristers from London-based chambers are still far more likely to take silk, according to a new study by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Any person thinking about taking their case to court should be able to see a lawyer without cost at least once, according to an opinion poll conducted as part of work on the public perception of justice. The research by Citizens Advice said that the increased restrictions on legal aid were discouraging people from accessing the courts at all.

Private equity-backed alternative business structure Parabis Group has today been broken up into seven pre-pack sales after entering administration, as first predicted this morning by Legal Futures. Meanwhile, another private equity-backed firm, Knights, is set to break into the top 100 with the acquisition of Darbys.

Lawyers routinely over-estimate the current state of machine-learning computers but under-estimate their potential future capabilities, according to the chief executive of ROSS Intelligence, the company building an application billed as the world’s first “artificially intelligent attorney”.

A former partner at Blake Lapthorn has agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority that he will apply for his name to be removed from the roll after admitting five improper withdrawals of client money totalling almost £222,000. He used client money, without consent, for the benefit of another client – known as ‘teeming and lading’.