Practice Management

A legal tech start-up has won funding from the country’s leading social tech funder to help develop its speech-to-text tool, which also uses IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence (AI) system, so that it can be used in courts. Meanwhile, Dentons’ business accelerator has made its latest investment in an “AI-powered expertise finding platform”.

The training reforms unveiled last week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority are “not a panacea for diversity” though they could make a “significant contribution”, a report for the regulator has concluded. The report also warned that the arrival of the solicitors qualifying examination in 2020 would make the training market “more complex to navigate”.

The Court of Appeal has overturned a ruling that Raleys – the controversial but now defunct Barnsley law firm – should not have to compensate a miner who argued that its admitted negligence had caused him to settle a claim at an undervalue. Otherwise, it would be “far too easy for negligent solicitors to raise huge obstacles to claimants”.

The financial performance of smaller law firms has improved over last year, with both fee income and profits up significantly above inflation, according to an annual benchmarking survey published this week. Very little increase in salary costs, improved lock-up, and reductions in both WIP and debtor days contributed to the positive picture.

Blockchain-backed ‘smart contracts’ will be a “game changer” in property transactions, increasing certainty for buyers and sellers as well as speeding up the house-buying process, it has been claimed. It follows the successful pilot of a fraud-resistant blockchain-based title registration system by Sweden’s land registry.

Would-be solicitors will not have to go through the legal practice course and a two-year training contract to qualify in future, after the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed it is pressing ahead with its new training regime – but it has delayed implementation by a year to September 2020.

Innovative chambers Clerksroom is building Billy.Bot, a ‘robot junior clerk’ that will do the work of a traditional barristers’ clerk and also provide basic legal information to online users, Legal Futures can reveal. That is, except for taking a cut of barristers’ earnings.

Lawyers should control the supply of “so-called standard electronic documents”, such as confidentiality deeds or contracts, a report has suggested. The report also highlighted the ethical and regulatory issues raised by artificial intelligence.

Many senior partners lack all but a “basic knowledge” of their clients’ businesses, leading to “superficial” interactions and a “disconnect between law firms and their clients”, a report has found. As a result, in-house counsel are now looking at alternative providers.

The Legal Services Board has dropped plans to probe why it is taking women and those from ethnic minorities so long to reach senior roles in the profession. It also rejected the Law Society’s claim that it is putting too much emphasis on promoting competition at the expense of the other regulatory objectives it is meant to uphold.