Legal Services Act

Making law firms publish details of complaints and average prices on their websites will significantly improve the legal market for clients, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has argued. Its newly published annual report renews the panel’s push for open data, even though the Legal Services Board recently cast doubt on some of its key recommendations.

Unregulated legal services providers are generally cheaper and more innovative than regulated law firms, but consumers need to understand the risks of using them, Legal Services Board research has found. The small scale of the problems they cause is such that the oversight regulator said it would not take steps to introduce regulation.

The Law Society has told MPs that plans to give the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and other regulators full independence should be shelved because of the uncertainty caused by the EU Referendum. The society and SRA also clashed on the former’s bid to take over control of setting professional standards.

The stock market falls on the back of the EU Referendum has hit an ABS-owning property company the most, as well AIM-listed legal businesses with a personal injury (PI) element, a Legal Futures analysis has shown. The PI hit looks surprising given that the current state of political uncertainty is likely to be good news for the claimant market.

People with complaints about claims management companies (CMCs) are more likely to receive a financial remedy from their credit card provider than the Legal Ombudsman, it has emerged. The most three most complained-about CMCs have since surrendered their authorisation, leaving questions about whether consumers actually receive the compensation ordered.

The president of the Supreme Court last week called for a debate on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and for “greater prominence” for ethics in legal training. Lord Neuberger also warned once again of increased potential for ethical conflicts in alternative business structures owned by non-lawyers.

Crawford & Company, one of the world’s biggest firms of loss adjusters, has announced that it is setting up an alternative business structure in the UK to offer an end-to-end claims management services. Crawford – which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange – has 27 offices in this country.

Alternative business structure Lawyers Inc has said it aims to recruit between 800 and 1,000 lawyers over the next five years, having taken over two law firms as it rolls out its groundbreaking model. Director Martyn Caplan said he was talking to a dozen more firms.

Fee income at SME law firms is on the up, but profits are not matching the growth, with staff and premises costs among the causes, new research has found. There was a “dramatic growth in income” at London firms in particular, with “high-value project work… back on the desk” as corporate deals gathered pace.

‘Named and shamed’ barrister Tariq Rehman has come top of the latest table of complaints about lawyers published by the Legal Ombudsman. He was subject to more complaints than the combined total recorded for the country’s two largest consumer law firms, Irwin Mitchell and Slater & Gordon.

The Legal Services Board has accused the Law Society of misrepresenting its views on McKenzie Friends. The oversight regulator objected to a Law Society press release that claimed the LSB had suggested that “legal aid cuts could be offset by unleashing non-professionals on the courts”.

In the second part of our interview with Legal Services Board chief executive Neil Buckley, he explains why the board is “very hopeful” that the Competition and Markets Authority “will come out with draft proposals that will help move the legal services market on”.

Unregulated providers of legal services are not as much of a problem as many assume and there is simply not the evidence to back a ban on paid-for McKenzie Friends, the chief executive of the Legal Services Board has told Legal Futures in his first interview since taking on the role.

Members of the Co-op are set to receive money back if they use the group’s legal services arm. As the Co-operative Group looks to recover from the reputational damage of recent times, it has unveiled its new logo – returning to the familiar design first used in the 1960s – and revised its membership offer.

Defendant personal injury firm BC Legal is launching an unusual “client knowledge hub” in the City next month, which will provide a range of free services but “very little fee-earning”. It said the hub would offer training, software demonstrations and free access to meeting rooms, a roof terrace, a gym and a hotel.