Legal Services Act

Claims management companies have been warned by their regulator not to use “misleading headlines” or “sensational language” in clickbait-style advertisements. Meanwhile, two directors of CMCs that made misleading sales calls and took unauthorised payments, have been disqualified by the High Court.

The value of the business legal services market will grow strongly over the next couple of years, powered partly by Brexit, a report has predicted. It also highlighted the importance of networking for commercial lawyers, with businesses large and small actively attending client seminars and other events.

Estate agents will need to be more transparent over referral fees they receive from lawyers, while conveyancers will have to publish performance data, the government has decreed. It will also demand that conveyancers adopt more quality standards as part of a continuing push to help potential clients choose their lawyer.

The Legal Services Board has rejected calls to adopt a policy position on legal aid reform and the impact it might have on access to justice. The oversight regulator also rebuffed the argument that it should stop pushing for regulatory reform at a time of instability caused by Brexit.

The Co-op has acquired Simplify Probate, the UK’s second largest provider of probate, as it bids to become the dominant player in the market. It has also unveiled a 13.6% increase in legal services turnover for 2017 and announced a strategic alliance with the Simplify Group for property and conveyancing services.

Multinational companies with turnovers of over $1bn are spending less than half their external legal budgets on large law firms, a report has indicated. The survey found that specialist firms accounted on average for 28% of their budgets, while freelance contributors and consultants took 18% and online platforms 13%.

The whiplash reforms could cost claimant lawyers £80m in lost fees a year, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday as it unveiled its final impact assessment of the changes contained in the Civil Liability Bill. It also projected that they would cost claimants £990m in lost compensation and having to pay legal fees out of their damages.

North Yorkshire County Council has become the latest local authority to set up an alternative business structure (ABS) with the launch of First North Law. It comes as one of the country’s largest ABSs – Enact Conveyancing – has significantly expanded its presence in Yorkshire, creating 160 new jobs.

Legal services marketing giant NAHL is to create a third alternative business structure this year, which will focus on helping injured people navigate small claims if and when the government’s whiplash reforms happen in April 2019. The news comes against the background of its 2017 annual results, which showed revenue up but profit down sharply.

Justice Secretary David Gauke today finally published the Civil Liability Bill, which the government said “offered hope” of lower insurance premiums to millions of motorists by reducing the “unacceptably high number of whiplash claims”. The bill also contains changes to the way the personal injury discount rate is calculated.

The Legal Services Board has come under unprecedented pressure to reject plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce a centralised Solicitors Qualifying Examination. City lawyers, law lecturers and Welsh speakers have called on the LSB not to approve the application, while MPs asked for the decision to be postponed for six months.

A fifth of those buying leaseholds do not recall their solicitors giving them key information such as the length of the lease remaining, service charges and ground rent, according to research commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. But overall, conveyancing clients were generally happy with the service they received.

The Office for Legal Complaints – the body that oversees the Legal Ombudsman – has exercised for only the second time its power to name “in the public interest” an organisation responsible for dozens of complaints and warned consumers not to use it.

A law firm with offices across south Wales and Gloucestershire has become an alternative business structure to assist ambitious plans to exceed its rapid growth in 2017 and enable its non-lawyer chief executive to become an investor.

It should not be “beyond the wit of man” to design a system for low-value personal injury (PI) claims where insurers and their customers handle cases without the involvement of lawyers, the head of one of the country’s biggest insurance companies. The comments came alongside a claimant warning that the PI reforms left plenty of “meat” for CMCs.