News

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The market capitalisation of Rosenblatt, which last week became the fourth law firm to go public, has already risen by £10m on the back of a strong start to trading. Its chief executive is planning a regional acquisition to provide a lower-cost offering for corporate transactions and to create a standalone litigation funding business.

A young solicitor who “panicked” has been suspended for six months for lending his mobile to a criminal suspect who used it to silence a witness, and then denying it when questioned by police. Mohammed Abid’s barrister said he had made a “grave unforgivable error… he was a rabbit in headlights”.

The Association of British Insurers has hit back angrily at yesterday’s justice select committee report criticising the government’s plan to raise the small claims limit, saying that it “read like a shopping list of asks from the claimant lawyers”. Claimant lawyers, by contrast, have called on the Ministry of Justice to adopt the committee’s recommendations.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the solicitors it prosecutes have been warned that disciplinary tribunals are not there to rubber-stamp any agreed outcome they reach to avoid a full hearing. There have been examples in recent months of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal rejecting agreed outcomes to proceedings

The small claims limit for personal injury should rise by inflation to £1,500, rather than the higher levels proposed by the government, MPs on the justice select committee have recommended. In a major boost to claimant lawyers, the committee found little credibility in much of the government’s case for raising the limit.

Headbutting a litigant-in-person in the High Court may have been a “moment of madness” but the solicitor involved could not stay in the profession, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled. He argued that the headbutt, which left his victim with a broken nose, was “temporary insanity” which should result in a suspension.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority should do more to combat a “quite alarming” lack of understanding of equality laws, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons women and equalities select committee has said during a parliamentary debate on public legal education.

A key shot in the battle to harness technology to shrink the role of lawyers in drawing up agreements has been fired by a major global law firm, initially dealing with simple non-disclosure agreements but promising to venture deep into commercial contract territory.

Conveyancers are facing higher professional indemnity insurance costs – and their clients higher fees as a result – due to yesterday’s Court of Appeal ruling in Dreamvar, experts have predicted. One said the judgment “will provide greater protection to buyers, but will shake up the conveyancing industry with much greater risk of liability”.

Small and mid-sized law firms need to accept that lower levels of profitability are becoming the “new normal”, it was claimed yesterday. Their income is also falling, with firms of 11-25 partners recording the biggest drop last year – 11% – compared to only 1% for sole practitioners.