Practice Management

There is considerable unhappiness among home buyers and sellers with conveyancers and the speed of the moving process, new research has found. More than 40% of consumers were unsure or unlikely to offer them repeat business.

A total of 49 firms are heading for closure after failing to secure indemnity insurance, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. This compares with 138 which were forced to shut for the same reason last year.

Large corporate clients are demanding “far more” fixed fee and ‘menu’ pricing, but are having to push firms into providing it, a survey based on interviews with 40 in-house teams and 50 top 100 law firms has found.

A new lawyer-matching service aimed particularly at tech start-ups has secured £260,000 of funding from e-commerce funder Forward Partners and Jonathan McKay, chairman of JustGiving.

There are increasing reports of law firms allowing their client account to be used by others as a bank account in clear breach of the rules, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) warned yesterday.

The Law Society has called on the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) not to abandon the training contract, which it is said was viewed by other jurisdictions as the “gold standard”.

Lawyers frustrated by having to confine their tweets to 140 characters will be free to express themselves in ‘moots’ of up to 500 words on new legal social media site mootis, launched today.

Magic circle firm Allen & Overy has expanded the online legal service it provides to financial institutions as part of its “strategic vision to integrate a range of new service capabilities and delivery models with its core high-end legal practice”.

QualitySolicitors (QS) has launched a new online customer platform, which has taken a year to develop and is described by the network as the most advanced of its kind.

More than 1,000 barristers have already signed up to a “game changing” initiative that aims to smooth the way for consumers and businesses to use public access, Legal Futures can reveal.