Litigation/Dispute Resolution

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has broken its silence on the Mazur case to stress that it has not changed the existing legal position.

Shares in listed funder LCM crashed by 60% yesterday after the number of cases it has lost meant there was “a material uncertainty in relation to our going concern status”.

Lawyers have been questioning whether the High Court was right in its contentious ruling in Mazur on the conduct of litigation, with the CPR key in the debate.

A judge has used artificial intelligence to summarise documents and help him produce his ruling – but stressed that he had made the decision.

The Senior Costs Judge has revealed that the Mazur case has already been cited before him and suggested that legal professional privilege could be a problem when dealing with the argument.

The advent of AI means that lawyers will need to become more creative in how they charge their clients, with the billable hour unlikely to survive, it has been claimed.

A partner at a London law firm “dishonestly assisted” in misappropriating a company’s funds by turning a blind eye to money laundering issues raised by property transactions, the High Court has ruled.

Solicitors have reported “little improvement” in the dilapidated state of court estate over the past three years, with problems including rotting seagulls and maggots “raining down” into a lobby.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is checking if it provided any other law firms with incorrect advice on whether non-authorised people can conduct litigation.

Last week’s High Court ruling on unqualified fee-earners conducting litigation will cause “nationwide disruption”, with firms urged to review their approach to supervision.

A ban on using the term ‘no win, no fee’ and enhanced oversight of law firms are among ideas put forward by the SRA to make the high-volume consumer claims market work better.

Litigation funders should have to purchase a small percentage of class actions before they are certified as part of efforts to improve the system, a think tank has recommended.

A tribunal has heavily criticised a solicitor who acted for a woman the judge decided did not actually exist, in a bid to stop a property sale, in a case he described as “quite extraordinary”.

A claimant failed to take reasonable steps to serve a claim form in a £572,000 professional negligence action against a law firm, a judge has ruled.

Cardiff’s Capital Law has set up a litigation funding arm and secured backing of up to £50m to finance smaller commercial cases run by other mid-market law firms.