Practice Management

The risk of solicitors being landed with hefty VAT bills for electronic property searches has become a reality for at least one law firm, which has now received a demand from HM Revenue & Customs for tens of thousands of pounds. It has heightened the call for the tax treatment of postal and electronic searches to be made consistent.

The Ministry of Justice is at risk of freezing out a large number of vulnerable people from accessing the online court if it does not reshape its strategy for assisting the ‘digitally excluded’, according to a major study by the Civil Justice Council. Meanwhile, another report called for further research targeted at hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless and detained persons.

The Ministry of Justice’s top civil servant has told MPs that the government’s massive court reform programme will have failed if it does not carry the support of those who work in and use the courts. Meanwhile, the chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunal Service stressed that non-digital systems would remain alongside digital ones.

Manchester University has launched what is understood to be the first legal technology course for law degree students in England and Wales. The course will combine classroom study of different approaches to access to justice with building an app for use by legal non-profit organisations.

Over a third of home movers would be prepared to pay more for a “premium customer service” from their conveyancer, according to new research that also charts how local solicitors have lost ground to licensed conveyancers and online operations. It said that many conveyancing firms were not responding quickly enough to “21st century mindsets”.

A payment processor has taken the place of conveyancers in handling the finances on completion day in what has been claimed to be the UK’s first fully digital mortgage settlement. It could spell the end to clients waiting with the removal van in the afternoon for money to be transferred between lawyers.

The government is set to finally make good on its pledge to make the directors of companies which make unsolicited nuisance calls personally liable if their firm breaks the law. The announcement yesterday generated big tabloid headlines, but in fact the government made the same one more than 18 months ago but did not act on it.

The Courts Service is still “considering views” on introducing flexible operating hours, which provoked an angry reaction from the profession last year. Chief executive Susan Acland-Hood admitted that the service did not need flexible hours to deliver its promised savings from modernisation.

A law firm in London has launched what it believes is the first training scheme in psychologically based supervision to help family lawyers manage work-related stress. Its creator said: “I think it should be compulsory for all family lawyers, both for their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their clients.”

The Courts Service has laid out how it will develop its new online divorce facility, starting with enabling lawyers to submit petitions on behalf of clients and also developing both public and private family law services that are fully accessible online.