Practice Management
Wills firm embraces four-day week for all staff
A wills and probate business in Plymouth has made headlines by becoming one of the first to embrace the embryonic trend of switching staff to a four-day week.
Survey: recruitment fears head mid-sized firms’ concerns
Recruiting and retaining talent is the top priority among mid-sized law firms, ahead of efficiency and financial performance, according to a benchmark survey of preoccupations as they devise strategy.
Consumer panel urges regulators to act on lawtech
Regulators need to monitor the development of legal technology and issue guidance to help maximise the opportunities it presents while delivering the necessary protection for consumers.
Law firm “sacked staff member by WhatsApp”, tribunal finds
A law firm sacked its administrator by sending him a brief WhatsApp message – and then backdated his P45 to support an argument that he was actually fired earlier, an employment tribunal has found.
Court modernisation “undermining access to justice”, lawyers tell MPs
Criminal and civil lawyers have separately spelt out to MPs on the justice select committee a catalogue of ways in which court modernisation is undermining access to justice.
Deloitte seeks to leverage size advantage in tech race
Deloitte Legal in the UK is looking to ramp up its technology strategy as it bids to exploit its perceived advantage in providing multi-disciplinary services across the world.
Smart contracts and investment: innovations speed march of lawtech
A City firm has launched an off-the-shelf smart contract for insurers which triggers an automatic payment to a solar power company if it is cloudy, while a legal tech company has attracted £1.2m in investment.
Call for curbs on Lord Chancellor’s power over online rule committee
A future Lord Chancellor could impose “quite radical changes” on the court system unless changes are made to the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill, peers have warned.
British lawyers more likely to be bullied, global survey finds
British lawyers are more likely to be bullied in the workplace than their colleagues elsewhere in the world, the largest ever global study of bullying and sexual harassment in the legal profession has found.
Sole practitioners ‘more profitable than small firms’
Sole practitioners have overtaken small firms with two to four partners in terms of profit per equity partner, a survey has found. Sole practitioners also led the way in fee income growth compared to larger firms.
Blog
Why good governance matters when managing Law Society forms
Everyday legal transactions rely on Law Society forms. But they are often treated as static templates rather than what they really are: living documents that change over time.
A letter from the SRA? Your first reaction matters
An email from the SRA has a way of rearranging a working day. It arrives in the same inbox as everything else, often in the same measured tone, yet it carries a different weight.
Regulate sole practices on evidence, not turnover
For a sole practice, the SRA’s plan that I cannot hold a compliance role if my firm has more than £600,000 of turnover is not a measure of risk. It is a ceiling on growth.
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