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Lawyers do not have the same rights to speak out on sensitive and high-profile cases as journalists, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. It said that if lawyers are to make value judgements in public, they must have a factual basis.

A new venture that aims to “acquire, transform and aggregate” around 60 high street law firms over the next five years to create an alternative business structure with a turnover of more than £80m will shortly buy its first practice in a bid to prove the concept.

Two men who posted a YouTube video showing them burning a box of court bundles to the sound of Arthur Brown’s 1968 number one hit ‘Fire’ have been found liable for contempt at the High Court.

Law firms should ensure they have a proper exit strategy, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has warned, after five solicitors were fined for failing to close their firms properly in the space of just nine days.

The lengths to which the Solicitors Regulation Authority goes to approve people involved in alternative business structures has been highlighted by the case of a six-month-old baby.

The chief executive of Britain’s biggest conveyancing firm, myhomemove, has predicted that Veyo, the online portal launched yesterday by the Law Society and Mastek, “will fail”. Doug Crawford was unveiling a new version of myhomemove’s eWay.

A solicitor who lied to High Court and was found guilty of contempt – leading the now Lord Chief Justice to refer him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority – has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Veyo, the online conveyancing portal developed by the Law Society and IT giant Mastek, went live today with around 80 law firms taking part in the first phase. A much larger group of 1,800 firms which expressed an interest in the system will be able to join shortly.

Eight people who pretended to be lawyers have been sentenced after scamming elderly people out of more than £500,000 in return for bogus asset protection trusts, with carrying out a reserved legal activity when not authorised one of the charges half of them faced.

Solicitors working pro bono could offer a triage system to people who cannot, or think they cannot, afford a lawyer so that they can understand their options for resolving legal disputes, the Law Society has told the new government.