Practice Management

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.

Economic pressures forcing solicitors to ‘commoditise’ their advice “throw into sharp focus the need for standard form letters of advice to be clear in their exposition”, the Court of Appeal warned yesterday.

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.

Lord Dyson has praised a French online dispute resolution (ODR) website for opening up justice and said he hoped “something similar” would be created in this country.

A solicitor has launched an app which he hopes will be the equivalent of taxi service Uber for legal and accountancy advice by allowing consumers to find, connect with and later review their advisers.

The young entrepreneur behind RateMyBarrister.com has expanded the site to include solicitors. William Rees, a barrister based in Cardiff, accepted that this would mean finding a new domain name.

A lawyer comparison website aimed at SMEs is poised to begin an “aggressive growth” campaign to win market share, after securing substantial investment 18 months after it launched.

Although 80% of lawyers at small firms rate their services as ‘above average’ only 40% of clients rate them that way, a major study has found. The survey found that lawyers misunderstood clients’ priorities.