hrtraining

Plans by the Ministry of Justice to impose fixed-term contracts on fee- paid judges could be unlawful, the Bar Council has warned. The move has also been strongly attacked by the Law Society, which said solicitors could in future see judicial appointment as a gamble with their careers at their firms.

Privately educated people still dominate the legal profession, with barriers to entry for those from less affluent backgrounds are even more acute at the Bar than among solicitors, the Social Mobility Commission said yesterday.

The University of Law is to stop claiming that it is the “leading” law school in the UK in the wake of a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority. The watchdog upheld a complaint about an advert published by ULaw after finding the evidence supplied by the university incompatible with such a claim.

There need to be more women and ethnic minorities at senior levels of law firms and taking silk, the Lord Chancellor said yesterday as she pledged action to “force the pace of change” in improving diversity in the legal profession. She announced new measures to encourage experienced lawyers from all fields – and especially solicitors – to seek senior judicial roles.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal will today begin hearing a training provider’s claim that the Law Society acted anti-competitively by requiring law firms to buy its own training in order to maintain their Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation.

The majority at the employed Bar “do not feel supported or that their work is recognised”, both by the self-employed Bar and the Bar Council, research released yesterday by the latter has found. It said employed barristers enjoyed financial security, with average salaries around the £70,000 mark.

A niche law firm specialising purely in employee ownership has become an alternative business structure to extend its own scheme to non-lawyers. The firm, a limited company, was one of the first in the country to introduce employee ownership four years ago.

Law firms are being encouraged to get their act together now and come to terms with the new continuing professional development (CPD) regime for solicitors, which comes into force today. Firms can no longer choose to keep the old hours-based approach.

Some universities will incorporate the first stage of the proposed Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) into their law degrees, the education and training director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has predicted. She said this would make the legal practice course redundant.

A ‘disruptive’ legal recruitment app backed by investment from a commercial law firm has signed up thousands of lawyers and dozens of law firms in its first five months, and has just launched in Australia too. It aims to connect legal employers and lawyers without the need for middlemen.

More than one in five law students polled in the UK and the US admit that they would falsify time records for personal and business gain, according to a study of student ethics. Meanwhile, female law students tend to think more in ethical terms than men.

Most lawyers expect the law firm partnership model to wither over the next decade, as the legal services market embraces alternative business structures and technology, while ditching hourly billing – according to a new survey.

Lord Sumption, the outspoken Supreme Court justice, has said he regrets the “growing tendency of would-be lawyers to devote themselves to the study of law from the age of eighteen”. In an ideal world, law should only be offered as a second degree as “the study of a different subject at a formative time of one’s life” was “personally enriching”.

A gender gap in salaries continues to dog the solicitors’ profession, with men earning on average almost a fifth more than women, according to an earnings survey conducted by the Law Society. Meanwhile, a niche City law firm that shares its profit among all staff has paid out more than the equivalent of a year’s salary to every employee in four years.

The body representing chartered legal executives has called on the profession to end discrimination against lawyers who have qualified through non-university routes and open up the senior judiciary to those entered the law by alternative means.