Practice Management

Last year saw solid real-terms growth for mid-sized law firms, with median growth of 4.2% the result of increased fee income rather than simply more fee-earners, new figures have shown.

A trial of blockchain involving digital transfer of property ownership has been completed by the Land Registry, but the agency has no plans to adopt the emerging technology itself any time soon.

The personal experience of chartered legal executives shows that more needs to be done to stop pregnant women and new mothers being “punished” by employers, their representative body has argued.

A US firm has failed to strike out a discrimination claim brought by a former corporate lawyer in its London office, after a tribunal found her not responsible for a friend’s Twitter campaign against it.

An expert in law firm regulation has said he does not know a single insurer interested in providing indemnity insurance to freelance solicitors, a concern echoed by the Law Society.

Artificial intelligence software poses risks to society including tracking and identifying individuals, ‘scoring’ people without their knowledge, and powering lethal autonomous weapons systems.

The number of insolvencies among solicitors’ firms reached a new high last year, Insolvency Service figures have shown, and a funder has warned that ‘loan stacking’ will only make things worse.

The courts offer a “Rolls Royce system for the very few, while everyone else is left to walk”, Professor Richard Susskind has said in advocating for online courts.

Judges, justice campaigners, academics and others have raised wide-ranging concerns about the government’s ambitious court reform programme in evidence submitted to MPs.

Every family law practitioner will have felt the effects of court modernisation in their daily practice within a year, with the remaining parts of the divorce process moving online within months.