Practice Management
City solicitor chief: AI poses risk to legal careers – but not quite yet
Artificial intelligence poses “a medium to long-term” risk to legal careers, the chair of a new City of London Law Society committee on it has predicted.
Most clients do not believe law firms “genuinely committed” to ESG
Only a third of clients believe large law firms are genuinely committed to environmental, social and governance issues, a report has found.
Law firms increasingly screening clients against ESG values
The increasing extent to which clients are being screened against environmental, social and governance issues was laid out at a Law Society conference last week.
Law firm creates new partner level between salaried and full equity
A Yorkshire law firm has introduced a ‘tailored equity’ scheme to act as a “stepping stone” between being a salaried partner and full equity.
Big law firms abandon external investment in the face of volatility
None of the top 100 law firms are “actively pursuing alternative funding or ownership structures”, such as listing on Stock Exchange, for the next three to five years, a survey has found.
Tale of two cities as smaller London law firms seek shorter leases
Smaller commercial law firms in the City of London are pushing for short leases to give them more flexibility, while big firms signed five “mega-deals” on new offices last year.
Law firm goes live with two Black lawyer mentoring schemes
Setfords has become what it believes is the first law firm to launch two mentoring schemes aimed at aspiring and qualified Black lawyers respectively.
Campaigning solicitor and barrister trainers launch baby-loss programme
A solicitor campaigning for statutory leave for those suffering baby loss has teamed up with a training company run by barristers to create an online platform to help people returning to work afterwards.
Large law firms experiencing two ‘cyber incidents’ a month
Large law firms experienced an average of 23 ‘cyber incidents’ in the past 12 months and are among the lower spenders on cyber protection compared to other sectors.
World Mental Health Day: Calls to LawCare up sharply this year
LawCare has seen a 24% increase in the number of legal professionals contacting it for support so far this year, showing that employers need “to do more to create mentally healthy workplaces”.
Blog
Change in regulator shouldn’t make AML less of a priority
While SRA fines for AML have been climbing, many in the profession aren’t confident they will get any relief from the FCA, a body used to dealing with a highly regulated industry.
There are 17 million wills waiting to be written
The main reason cited by people who do not have a will was a lack of awareness as to how to arrange one. As a professional community, we seem to be failing to get our message across.
The case for a single legal services regulator: why the current system is failing
From catastrophic firm collapses to endemic compliance failures, the evidence is mounting that the current multi-regulator model is fundamentally broken.
