Practice Management

A London-based law firm has filed a claim for judicial review against the Law Society’s decision not to reaccredit a solicitor who had been on its mental health panel for nearly a decade. She said the decision meant she has had to stop working in an area about which she is “passionate”, and longstanding clients have had to find new representation.

Smart contracts in cross-border commerce moved a step closer to the mainstream this week when three City law firm giants joined a project that is seeking to create global legal standards for blockchain-backed transactions. We also report on firms’ technology training moves and a knowledge transfer partnership between a law firm and university.

The first element of the Online Court went public today, with a beta test enabling people to issue county court money claims for up to £10,000 more easily. The Ministry of Justice said the civil money claims pilot scheme “begins to deliver the vision… for claims worth up to £25,000 to be solved in an online court”.

The first digital mortgage deed was entered into the Land Register today following collaboration and testing with Coventry Building Society and Enact Conveyancing. Meanwhile, an online property sales platform that uses the blockchain to record property transactions has adopted artificial intelligence in its auction process.

Leading alternative legal services provider Axiom has launched a purpose-built service, incorporating artificial intelligence, to help companies update over 7.5m financial services contracts in the run-up to Brexit. It described this as the largest contract rewriting and updating exercise ever seen.

Mid-sized law firms are convinced that their IT spend is adding to profitability but three out of four make no effort to measure their return on investment, according to new research. It also found that more than two-thirds of firms had no CRM system and more than a quarter had no practice management system.

The Legal Services Board has approved an initial application by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Despite intense pressure, LSB chief executive Neil Buckley said there were “no grounds” to reject the SRA’s application, setting out the framework for the regime.

A start-up is aiming to change the way large firms buy legal services by offering them a software tool to calculate and manage their costs. ClearCosts enables general counsel and other major buyers of legal services to calculate “a proportionate fee for each stage of a dispute” and measure their lawyers’ performance.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has today unveiled its second attempt to reduce the compulsory level of professional indemnity insurance to £500,000 – although conveyancers would have to secure £1m in cover. It also wants to turn the Compensation Fund explicitly into a ‘hardship’ fund and ban relatively wealthy people from claiming on it.

A threat to make a former partner of a corrupt solicitor who was part of a £30m mortgage fraud pay £205,000 in damages has been lifted when the High Court struck out a claim by one of the mortgage companies.