Market monitor

Criminals are exploiting the coronavirus crisis and law firms may be more susceptible because of the financial pressures they are under, regulators have warned as we round up other key developments.

Most law firms have implemented a furloughing strategy, looking at reductions of up to 40% in headcount to survive the coronavirus crisis, while partners are reducing drawings too, according to a survey.

Week three of lockdown saw the start of a cash squeeze on law firms, with no money yet from the government, and predictions of a grim summer, according to research.

Many of the technologies and techniques that have been “forged in the heat” of the coronavirus crisis will usurp old ways of practising when life returns to normal, Professor Richard Susskind has predicted.

A North-East law firm that pitched itself as the future of criminal legal aid practice a decade ago by combining barristers and solicitors was formally wound up last month.

A former Linklaters partner now researching ethics at big law firms has urged them not to furlough or make staff redundant if the goal is to maintain partner profitability levels.

Just under 90% of fees generated by fee-earners at small and medium-sized law firms last year were used to cover their costs, Law Society research has found.

A group that contains both a regulated and unregulated law firm has launched what it says is the first video-signing service for statutory documents, as we round up the latest coronavirus news.

Clients did not disappear and matters did not ground to a halt in many practice areas during the second week of the coronavirus lockdown, research has found.

The Ministry of Justice is considering the idea of continuing to pay legal aid firms the average amount they claim each month to help them survive the coronavirus crisis.

A start-up alternative business structure has been launched to bring City solicitor expertise to bear to help consumers and SMEs win disputes when insurers fail to honour their policies.

Listed law firm Rosenblatt has not yet experienced any impact on its trading since the start of the coronavirus crisis, but is to delay paying out dividends to investors.

Staff numbers at personal injury law firm Bond Turner grew by 65% last year but the listed company that owns it has put the firm’s expansion to Leeds on hold during the coronavirus crisis.

The Ministry of Justice has introduced economic help for legal aid firms, making hardship payments easier to access and pausing debt repayments to the Legal Aid Agency.

More than half of barristers’ chambers will go out of business within six months if they do not receive financial support from the government during the coronavirus crisis, the Bar Council has warned.