Practice Management

A law firm has become a minority investor in a legal tech company, in what is understood to be the first move of its kind. Taylor Vinters said it wanted to develop new technology through collaboration with other businesses,

A Canadian law firm which runs offices inside Walmart supermarkets is planning to almost double in size next year, it has emerged. Mark Morris, co-founder of Axess Law, said the firm could potentially expand into the USA and the UK.

Personal injury, commercial and family work will all fuel negligence claims against lawyers, insurance specialist BLM has warned in a white paper. It also predicted that a new source of claims could come from the “rapid pace of reform” in legal services, testing new systems and processes “to their limit”.

Riverview Law has unveiled the technology which will power a range of legal ‘virtual assistants’ it is preparing to launch next year. Riverview said ‘Kim’ was already being used outside the legal world.

The demise of the Law Society and Mastek’s online conveyancing portal Veyo gives the “green light” to rival system Free2Convey, the chair of the Legal Software Suppliers Association has said. Matt Lancaster said Free2Convey could now become the “central conveyancing portal”.

The Law Society and Indian technology giant Mastek have decided to scrap online conveyancing portal Veyo, at a cost to the profession which has so far been confirmed at more than £3m but is likely to be much higher. The society said it was “deeply sorry” that conveyancers who had “waited patiently” for the product would not be able to use it.

The public believes that the legal system should be modernised faster than is happening at present, with many feeling “the justice system has retained tradition at the expense of efficiency”, new research has found. Education about the law and legal process, and simplifying legal language were also keys to improving access to justice.

A High Court judge has launched an extraordinary attack on a senior property partner, saying that although he was “on the whole” an honest witness, he “plainly cut corners all the time in his practice”. Mrs Justice Proudman said Michael Parker regarded himself as a “man of commerce”.

A group of London local authorities, a legal software supplier and an electronic data specialist claim to have developed the first “entirely digital” process for court proceedings.

Lawyers routinely over-estimate the current state of machine-learning computers but under-estimate their potential future capabilities, according to the chief executive of ROSS Intelligence, the company building an application billed as the world’s first “artificially intelligent attorney”.