Practice Management

A law firm was entitled to exercise its contractual right to recoup from a solicitor the cost of recruiting her after she left within a year, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Pro bono work has become a “mainstream part of legal education” and a significant number of law schools plan to integrate it with the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, a major study has found.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined a marketing company £250,000 for making over 365,000 nuisance calls asking people about accidents and pretending to be from their insurer.

One of the leading figures in legal education has hailed the introduction next year of the SQE as a “revolution”, with another saying it will break down the barriers between academia and the profession.

A pioneering lawtech business is shutting down in the face of litigation from Thomson Reuters that it says means it cannot raise funds.

Actions to improve race inclusion in the solicitors’ profession are not delivering change quickly enough, Law Society research has found, highlighting a significant ethnicity pay gap and the need for targets.

Five lawtech businesses are to join a ‘sandbox’ designed to “fast-track transformative ideas, products and services” with the help of legal and financial regulators.

The challenge facing traditional law firms from artificial intelligence is not a lack of finance to invest in technology but having the right “human capital”, a study from Oxford University has argued.

Homeworking has led to many solicitors at small firms experiencing feelings of isolation and lack of motivation – but also most want it to continue in some form post-Covid, a survey has found.

A future justice system could use AI technology to inform people of their chances of success and even provide automated determinations, according to futurist Professor Richard Susskind.