Market monitor

Fast-growing consumer law firm Taylor Rose TTKW has more than doubled in size after taking over private equity-backed McMillan Williams – and has taken investment of its own, we can reveal.

The solicitor boss of listed law firm Knights entered the Sunday Times Rich List at the weekend, and our calculations show that lawyers at other listed firms are also worth many millions – on paper at least.

Comments about TV stars Rachel Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman made in an article retweeted by a London barrister were defamatory, the High Court has ruled in a preliminary hearing.

The AIM-listed company formerly known as Quindell is no longer a suspect in the Serious Fraud Office’s investigation of what happened before the sale of its legal arm to Slater & Gordon.

City firm Mishcon de Reya has launched an advisory service for companies wanting to build “more sustainable and resilient” businesses as they emerge from the coronavirus crisis.

The outlook for creditors of failed personal injury firm Roberts Jackson is bleak, with nearly £40m that it owes, more than half to its private equity backer, unlikely to be repaid.

Conveyancers, estate agents and others involved in the home-moving process can return to work today in line with social distancing advice, the government announced last night.

A jury trial resumed at the Old Bailey yesterday, with barristers in the jury and press boxes, and jurors socially distancing in counsel’s rows after being told there were no face masks for them.

A fund worth more than £5m to sustain UK social justice advisers through the Covid-19 pandemic – and as a “catalyst for wider renewal” – has gone live today.

Reduced billing by law firms in April was covered by a parallel fall in costs and arrival of government money, but the lack of new work is going to hurt them badly, according to new research.