News

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Reports of cybercrime from law firms reached record levels in the first quarter of this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. The figures are contained in the regulator’s latest Risk Outlook, which for the first time includes questionable investment schemes involving solicitors.

A legal tech firm is open source its AI-based document analysis tool next month, in one of the first moves of its kind for the sector. Its co-founder said he believed that the smallest legal tech start-ups could be based on the tool and then “1,000 flowers can bloom”.

The panel of a Bar disciplinary tribunal has taken the highly unusual step of recusing itself after an allegation that it had shown actual or apparent bias against the defendant barrister, Legal Futures can reveal. The decision is the latest twist in a long-running saga involving a barrister who has twice been cleared of other allegations in the past three years.

A lady justice of appeal has berated the Government Legal Department over its defence of a negligence claim brought by a prison officer against the Ministry of Justice, saying its “lack of focus” led to a “huge workload which was wholly disproportionate to the real issues”.

The profession should play an active role in certifying the quality of public legal information so as to help people identify whether they have legal problems, according to the head of an access to justice charity. The call came as the Solicitor General launched a new panel to drive forward legal education initiatives.

The proportion of law firms targeted by scammers has risen sharply over the last year, especially among larger firms, as has the number of practices taking out cyber-insurance, according to new research from the Law Society. The survey on indemnity insurance also showed that a significant minority of brokers continue not to disclose their commission.

City law firm Fieldfisher has invested in “game changer” technology that helps investors and start-ups conclude deals quickly online. SeedLegals describes itself as “the world’s first automated legal service for start-up funding rounds”.

The Chief Legal Ombudsman is to leave her post, it has been announced – just days after the government praised the work she has done to revive the standing of her organisation and a few weeks after the service’s chief executive said he was leaving too.

Judges are “left uneasy” by professionals presenting their own challenges to regulators as litigants in person and ignoring the “best points” available to them, the High Court has heard. Mr Justice Green said that it was an “unfortunate feature” of regulatory proceedings that while the regulator was represented, the appellant, who did not qualify for legal aid, “frequently was not”.

A sole practitioner who did not have a client account and admitted using his office account “at times as a personal account” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The tribunal heard that Michael Healey, based in Liverpool, misappropriated over £31,000 of client money before going bankrupt.