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Confusion among solicitors is the biggest challenge to the hours-free competence regime introduced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, a survey has suggested. The second biggest challenge was that “solicitors think they won’t have to do any training”.

Insisting on an upper second class degree for future barristers could impose a “discriminatory burden” on BAME students, who are less likely to obtain them, a leading academic has argued in response to a Bar Standards Board consultation that raises the possibility.

Law firms are failing to unify the different generations within their workforces and are suffering as a result, research has suggested. It said there need to be formal programmes within firms that get the different generations talking and working together.

Lawyers at small and medium-sized firms are motivated much more by helping clients than running businesses, research has found. Only a slender majority said they enjoyed managing a business or saw themselves as “entrepreneurial”, compared to the 83% who got a “real buzz” out of practising law.

A company set up by a senior solicitor to be a member of his firm’s limited liability partnership can be the victim of age discrimination, the president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled. It is believed to be the first discrimination case brought by a company.

An equal gender balance among practising barristers is “unlikely ever to be achieved” if current trends continue, a Bar Council report has warned. However, there was better news on BAME representation, which is due to hit 20%.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has begun work on developing a “centralised assessment of competence” that potential solicitors would have to pass to qualify, it has emerged. It comes as Mayer Brown became the first City law firm to unveil a six-year ‘articled apprenticeship’ programme.

The legal community has mixed feelings about the ‘equivalent means’ route to qualification as a solicitor, with even those who like the idea fearing the consquences of greater competition and consequently lower wages, according to a survey.

A law firm ‘named and shamed’ today by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage has hit back strongly. It was included in a list of 70 employers because it “neglected to pay £530.96 to a worker”.

The legal profession of the future is going to be younger, Neville Eisenberg, managing partner of City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), told the Global Law Summit in London today.

Fewer than half the lawyers in central and local government are satisfied with their jobs and only a third with their pay, research by the Law Society has revealed.

Regulators need to do more with the diversity data they now collect in order to drive improvements in recruitment and particularly progression and retention within the profession, the Legal Services Board will shortly say.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has apologised for releasing information that made it appear as if there had been a massive rise in training places last year – when in fact the number has stayed static.

East Anglian practice Ashton KCJ has become what is thought to be the first law firm in the UK to introduce a ‘paid time-off’ policy, which focuses on productivity rather than time in the office by allowing all salaried employees to take the holiday they need without the constraint of a set number of days per year.

Equal pay and a change in culture that makes women feel “comfortable in the working environment” are the keys to ensuring a “truly fair, equal, and diverse legal profession”, a cabinet minister who used to be a City solicitor has argued.