Practice Management
“AI won’t replace lawyers – so long as they embrace it,” says top City firm
Generative artificial intelligence will not replace lawyers, but lawyers who use it will replace those who do not, the head of lawtech at a leading City law firm has predicted.
Top accountants set to grow legal arm after innovative PE deal
Top 10 accountancy firm Moore Kingston Smith is set to expand its legal services arm after becoming the first to take on private equity funding while staying a limited liability partnership.
Ince Group was sold for £2.2m while owing creditors £41m
National law firm Axiom DWFM is paying £2.2m for listed practice Ince Group, whose creditors are owed £41m, according to the administrators, who set out what went wrong.
Solicitors accused of “mistrust and indifference” to lawtech
Solicitors have been described as displaying “mistrust and indifference” to new technology, with a lack of support from managers a major barrier, in a major study of attitudes to lawtech.
Chambers offered to “carry me up stairs” to pupillage interview
A barrister with a spinal cord injury has described how a set of chambers, despite being told in advance that he was disabled, offered to carry him up the stairs to a pupillage interview.
Firms could be forced to point consumers to LeO complaints records
Law firms may be compelled to point potential clients to Legal Ombudsman decisions about them to help make it easier for consumers to choose a lawyer.
Hiring star lawyers “can lower quality of service”
Hiring ‘star’ or elite commercial lawyers often reduces the quality of the teams they join, a study has found, with some large law firms panicking about losing big clients unless they had “big names”.
City solicitor apprentice initiative “could snowball”
An initiative by 50 City law firms to increase the number of solicitor apprentices “could snowball”, the chair of the City of London Law Society training committee has predicted.
In defence of partnership – London firm moves to full equity
Well-known law firm Anthony Gold has bucked the trend of firms adopting a corporate structure by moving to a full-equity partnership to give partners an equal stake in its development.
General counsel used Covid as “opportunity to go off-panel”
A lot of general counsel used the pandemic as an “opportunity to go off-panel” and instruct boutique law firms and alternative legal services providers, a leading law firm adviser has said.
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.
