Marketing & PR

The Legal Services Board has warned regulators not to go further than the legislative requirements for the impending ban on referral fees in personal injury, calling for “a liberal approach” that does not prevent alternative business structures effectively circumventing it.

There is broad support for an outcomes-focused approach to implementing the ban on referral fees in personal injury cases, according to early indications from the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s consultation on the issue.

Law firms’ social media policies need to extend to issues such as who owns contacts and content developed by staff members through the use of networks like LinkedIn, while they should also be cautious about searching the social media activity of potential recruits, new guidance has advised.

The Law Society is investigating whether to launch its own solicitor comparison website, Legal Futures can reveal. There is an internal debate going on as to whether this would enable comparison on price as well as other factors.

Three in four people have received an unsolicited text or phone call from a claims management company offering them the chance to claim compensation, even though almost all had no grounds to bring a claim, according to research.

The Legal Services Board has urged regulators and professional bodies to engage with comparison websites for the benefit of consumers, including providing access to their registers, Legal Futures can reveal.

Our regular round-up of news snippets features another acquisition by ABS-in-waiting Quindell Portfolio, a solicitor’s TV ad winning a Royal Television Society award, a firm donating referral fees to charity, and ABS compensation fund arrangements.

Many law firms have failed to ensure their websites can be read by mobile devices, while others have produced “horrendous” applications (apps) for smartphones in their rush to be seen at the cutting edge of technology, a report has claimed.

There has been a massive increase in people using Twitter to ask for recommendations of professional service providers in the last two years, with solicitors one of the most in demand, according to research conducted for Orange Business.

Six businesses – including a law firm – are battling for control of a new .law domain that is set to become available as the body that co-ordinates Internet addresses opens up the market radically. There is also competition for the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) .lawyer and .legal.

The impending ban on referral fees in personal injury could result in a “steep increase” in the number of financial failures amongst small law firms – but may not actually discourage spurious claims – the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

The only winners in the online legal documents business are those supplying services to the likes of law firms, financial institutions and trade associations – rather than selling them directly to the end-user – new research has found. It warned that engineering online legal documents is not an end in itself.

A “disruptive” services procurement platform that allows small and medium-sized businesses to put out tenders to an expert community and manage them, all via the cloud, is set to enter the legal market.

Just eight personal injury brands dominate the web searches of potential clients, with national law firm Irwin Mitchell leading the way, new research has found. The report also found social media strategies “massively under-developed within the legal services sector”.

The prospect of paying referral fees in personal injury becoming a criminal offence seemingly disappeared last night, while the government defeated a bid to exempt not-for-profits from the ban and outlined its plans to crack down on unsolicited PI marketing.