Practice Management
High Court orders partner to sell his share of law firm
The High Court has ruled that a partner in a law firm who paid himself £16,500 after he had left the firm and was “effectively competing with it” breached his director’s duties.
SQE to be introduced in autumn 2021
The Solicitors Qualifying Examination – the new way that solicitors will qualify – will be launched in autumn 2021, with the candidate fee likely to range between £3,000 and £4,500.
Gauke urges profession to push further on diversity
The legal profession has “a real opportunity to blaze a trail” on diversity, the Lord Chancellor said today. David Gauke said women at the very top of the profession should be the norm.
Mystery shoppers: Law firms good face-to-face but not on phone
Law firms are still underperforming when dealing with potential clients on the telephone rather than face-to-face, a mystery shopping survey has found.
Robot judges less likely than AI-assisted judges, QC predicts
Artificial intelligence is likely to be used to lower the cost and increase the speed of judicial decisions, a QC specialising in IT and algorithms has predicted.
Biggest client’s “IT disaster” tipped firm into administration
A “disastrous IT failure” suffered by a law firm’s biggest client tipped it over the edge into administration and a pre-pack sale to fast-growing national firm Taylor Rose TTKW.
Partner fails to strike out bank’s claim under guarantee
A former partner of a London firm that went into liquidation has lost his bid to strike out Barclays Bank’s claim to enforce a guarantee he provided to cover a loan and overdraft.
CA refuses to widen solicitor’s retainer for negligence claim
Solicitors do not have to carry out investigative tasks in areas they have not been asked to deal with, however beneficial to the client it might have turned out to be.
Technology “can help conveyancers meet consumer demands”
Only a tiny number of conveyancing firms are committed to innovation, while consumers are pressing for technology that gives them access to information, a survey said.
New tech demands code of “cyber ethics” for lawyers
The legal profession will have to develop “cyber ethics” to cope with the very different issues that the growing use of technology is having on the practice of law.
Blog
From text to world: The legal significance of multimodal AI
The next phase of AI, already underway, will integrate text with vision, sound, motion and even touch. This will produce systems that no longer ‘read about’ the world but perceive it.
The new leaders of law
Where once many law firm owners remained technology sceptics, a growing number are now shaped by leaders who are digitally fluent and commercially oriented.
Managing lock-up, cash flow and billing inefficiencies better
If law firms view lock-up, cash flow and billing processes as key indicators of financial performance – and therefore risk – they can identify problems early.
