Legal Services Act

Registered European lawyers will have a grace period until the end of next year to sort out how they will continue to practise in the UK, even if there is a no-deal Brexit, the government said last week.

Shares in Anexo Group, the AIM-listed business that owns Liverpool law firm Bond Turner, reached a new high yesterday after announcing that it expected profits to exceed market expectations.

A barrister who complied with an order from the Legal Ombudsman to pay compensation to a client only two hours before appearing at a Bar disciplinary tribunal has been fined £2,000.

A trainee legal executive and her practice manager sister have taken over the law firm owned by their mother after her death, by restructuring it as an alternative business structure.

Slater & Gordon – the first law firm owned by a hedge fund – made a small profit in its first year of independence from its one-time Australian parent, it revealed yesterday.

The Law Society is warning that turnover from legal services would slump by £3.5bn in the event of a no-deal Brexit. It was particularly concerned about the fate of future UK lawyers.

The civil servant overseeing the Civil Liability Act reforms yesterday declared his confidence that the 6 April 2020 target for implementation would be met. But he stressed that “ministers will not rush this”.

DWF, the world’s largest listed law firm, revealed that going public cost the business £12.6m while also slowing down its acquisition activity. Revenue for the year to 30 April grew 15% to £272m.

A third of consumers are now accessing legal services online while telephone-based services are declining, new research has found. However, the proportion shopping around is still relatively low.

The High Court has rejected a libel claim by a woman who an in-house lawyer suggested in an email to a court official had potentially acted fraudulently.