Legal Services Act

Big Four accountant KPMG has been reprimanded and fined £3.15m by the Financial Reporting Council after admitting misconduct in its auditing of former personal injury alternative business structure Quindell. William Smith, KPMG’s ‘audit engagement partner’, was fined £84,000 after an investigation lasting nearly three years.

The chairman of the Bar Council said yesterday that he would support the £15m deal being offered by the Ministry of Justice to end the action over criminal legal aid fees, as barristers began voting on whether to accept it. It came amid sharply divergent views from others about whether barristers should be standing shoulder to shoulder with solicitors.

Four in five motorists do not think it is likely that their insurer will cut premiums after saving more than £1bn under the government’s personal injury (PI) reforms. A similar number would not know what to do if the reforms forced them to pursue a PI claim on their own.

Numeracy skills will be “massively more important in the new world of legal services delivery”, the co-founder of “legal engineers” Wavelength Law has predicted. He said there would be more solicitors in the future, as new technology and automation generated new kinds of disputes.

Incopro, an online brand and IP protection business co-founded by media law firm Wiggin, has raised $21m (£16m) from a leading growth equity investor. Incopro – founded in 2012 – is one of a series of ancillary businesses created by Wiggin, the Cheltenham and London-based alternative business structure.

Pioneering alternative business structure Knights is the latest law firm to announce its intention to float on AIM, pledging to make three acquisitions in the next two years as part of its continuing growth strategy. Once it begins trading in late June, it will become the fifth law firm to list, hot on the heels of City firm Rosenblatt.

Over a third of home movers would be prepared to pay more for a “premium customer service” from their conveyancer, according to new research that also charts how local solicitors have lost ground to licensed conveyancers and online operations. It said that many conveyancing firms were not responding quickly enough to “21st century mindsets”.

Criminal defence solicitors have questioned the unity in the profession to reform the justice system after highlighting how the Bar has asked for solicitors’ support in its fee dispute without reciprocating or involving them in the discussions.

The Legal Services Board has handed out a public censure for the first time, after finding that the Law Society had governance arrangements in place that could have interfered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Law Society’s actions undermined “the public interest in effective regulation of legal services”.

LOD – the flexible lawyers business previously known as Lawyers On Demand – has become the latest legal business to take private equity after Bowmark Capital, which specialises in investing in growth companies, became its principal shareholder.