Indemnity insurance

Solicitors running two firms caught out by changes to the indemnity insurance rules and the closure of the assigned risks pool in 2012-13 have been fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for failing to wind-down their practices in an orderly manner.

A judge has launched an extraordinary attack on “by far the worst solicitor witness I have ever seen giving evidence in the witness box”. Edward Abenson told Legal Futures that the judge was “very harsh” on him.

Cyber security is becoming a central issue for professional indemnity insurers, and firms will in future need to demonstrate what protections they have against cyber criminals before they are offered cover, a leading broker has predicted.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will focus more on individual regulation and less on firms in the year ahead, chief executive Paul Philip has said.

Professional negligence as a discrete body of law could disappear if restrictions on the liability of professionals continue to be swept aside as social attitudes towards them also change, Lord Justice Jackson has predicted.

All but one of the entities authorised by the Bar Standards Board since the beginning of this month consist of a single barrister, with the other made up of two barristers, it has emerged.

Almost a half of law firms using insurance brokers to secure their indemnity cover in last year’s renewal said brokers failed to reveal their commissions, a Law Society survey has revealed.

A High Court judge has found that although international law firm Baker & McKenzie was negligent in advice it gave on Mexican tax law, it was not liable to pay damages to the company involved.

Lawyers who act on instructions in threatening potential intellectual property infringers with action are to be exempt from being sued when the threat turns out to be groundless, after the government recently gave the go-ahead for law reforms.

The High Court has allowed media law firm Olswang to escape being named as a defendant in a $400m (£267m) claim relating to work completed before the partnership converted to LLP status when it upheld a refusal to correct a mistake in naming it as a party.