Practice Management

A key shot in the battle to harness technology to shrink the role of lawyers in drawing up agreements has been fired by a major global law firm, initially dealing with simple non-disclosure agreements but promising to venture deep into commercial contract territory.

Conveyancers are facing higher professional indemnity insurance costs – and their clients higher fees as a result – due to yesterday’s Court of Appeal ruling in Dreamvar, experts have predicted. One said the judgment “will provide greater protection to buyers, but will shake up the conveyancing industry with much greater risk of liability”.

Small and mid-sized law firms need to accept that lower levels of profitability are becoming the “new normal”, it was claimed yesterday. Their income is also falling, with firms of 11-25 partners recording the biggest drop last year – 11% – compared to only 1% for sole practitioners.

“Very real obstacles” faced by a family law client in bringing a negligence action against a Cheshire law firm did not mean that the claim should be struck out in its entirety, the High Court has ruled. The claimant argued that, but for the firm’s negligence, he would have had to pay a third of the lump sum ordered by a district judge on his divorce.

Solicitors acting for the buyer of a property purportedly ‘sold’ by an imposter were liable for the losses suffered by their client, the Court of Appeal has ruled by a majority in the long-awaited decision in Dreamvar However, the court also found that seller’s solicitors liable, meaning that the other solicitors could sue them for a contribution.

Two former partners of leading City law firms have launched an online legal directory venture that they hope will replace the traditional printed directories. Top3legal enables client recommendations to be linked to an existing database of 156,000 lawyers, assembled from publicly available information.

Training law students in emotional competency, and a change in culture, led from the top, in law firms and chambers are among the shifts needed to combat the growing problem of stress in the legal profession, according to a roundtable held in the run-up to Mental Health Awareness Week, which begins today.

The number of qualified accountants’ reports due to rule breaches has fallen by two-thirds since the rules were changed in 2015, but the amount then being investigated for possible rule breaches has tripled, it has emerged. A handful of them have led to regulatory action as a result.

The failure of HM Courts and Tribunals Service to carry the support of lawyers for its ambitious modernisation plans has contributed to failing to meet its timetable, according to Parliament’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office warned that the service was “behind where it expected to be at this stage” of the £1bn reforms

Profit per equity partner is down by 10%, although other performance indicators are up, according to an influential benchmarking report of SME law firms, published today. However, although PEP was down – from £120,000 last year to £108,000 – median fees per equity partner were up by an inflation-busting 5.4% to £539,000 last year.