Practice Management

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has had to increase its provision for general insurance claims by around £45m for the next financial year, because of the failures of Enterprise Insurance and Gable Insurance AG, it has emerged, while it is still paying out for other insurers that used to back solicitors.

Parliament could harness the power of technology to provide a system to lawmakers that gives them the ability to test speculatively the knock-on effects of legislative changes while they are considering bills, according to IT guru Professor Richard Susskind.

A criminal law firm has hit back at a Sunday tabloid newspaper story that quoted a senior policewoman who condemned as “idiotic” its Facebook posts identifying unmarked police cars. The firm told readers that while other firms “will promise you the earth… we’re more practical”.

Online wills start-up Farewill hopes to motivate people to make wills by attracting them with simplicity and branded design rather than extensive add-ons. The founders of property website Zoopla and short-term loans business Wonga, together with the tech investment arm of advertising agency M&C Saatchi Plc, have backed the venture.

National direct access chambers Clerksroom is to offer clients pay-as-you-go video conferences with barristers by the end of this year, it has emerged. Clerksroom has also won a place in the final of Disruptive Tech TV’s sales pitch competition – recruiting one of the judges as a client in the process.

The case of three men charged with insider trading based on information they hacked from prominent US law firms “should serve as a wake-up call for law firms around the world”, a New York prosecutor has said.

A solicitor’s passing-off claim against her old firm for continuing to use her name as part of its branding has been thrown out by the court because the law firm owned the goodwill generated by her work. However, she did have a case to revoke the trade mark registered after the firm hired her to set up an employment practice.

Artificial intelligence will likely be better at predicting the outcome of cases than the most experienced QCs, the Lord Chief Justice has warned. He also flagged changes that would see unbundling, outsourcing, and lesser-qualified staff assisted by technology taking over some of the work now done by lawyers.

Law firm employees could be clamouring to take anti-money laundering training, if a business that has applied computer game technology to training in a subject not normally described as ‘fun’ successfully gains traction. In the latest of our features on lawtech start-ups, we profile a company using games as the model for designing training courses.

Plans by the Ministry of Justice to impose fixed-term contracts on fee- paid judges could be unlawful, the Bar Council has warned. The move has also been strongly attacked by the Law Society, which said solicitors could in future see judicial appointment as a gamble with their careers at their firms.