Practice Management

Firms that are adapting to the way the legal market is changing “will have to face the hard truth that their actions today won’t be understood for years”, an investigation into the future of the law has concluded.

A legal research website which relies on crowdsourcing and ranks content according to user ratings, launched this week. My Learned Friend is backed by £60,000 of funding from a local technology investor.

The world’s largest lawyer rating website could be heading for the UK after raising £22m in new capital, Legal Futures can reveal. Avvo, a US-based company, applies its proprietorial rating to more than 97% of lawyers in America.

A leading personal injury law firm has gone public with a unique profitability calculator to make other practices realise how radically the economics of work have changed in the post-LASPO era, Legal Futures can reveal.

Unrated insurers continued to share more than a fifth of the professional indemnity insurance market at the last renewal round, while the Solicitors Regulation Authority mulls whether to force them to ‘get rated or get out’ of the business.

Law firms are starting to see the opportunities in small claims after Liverpool firm Morecrofts launched a flat-fee service, allied with unbundled pieces of advice, to aid potential claimants.

QualitySolicitors has teamed up with a mediation provider to offer a fixed-fee legal solution for the type of small claims disputes that it said most “shortsighted” law firms will not touch. It said law firms were missing out on potential clients of the future.

Leading civil liberties practice Hodge Jones & Allen has received a full apology and damages from The Times newspaper over an article which accused the firm of misleading victims of the Magdalene laundries in Ireland.

The fears of litigants about the high cost of legal representation were borne out by their experience, government-commissioned research has found.

A pioneering alternative business structure (ABS) has become one of the first legal practices to introduce employee ownership, while also developing a new form of billing that will see it agree a profit margin with clients, Legal Futures can reveal.

The major quality marks used in the profession are becoming more credible, but many still have “a long way to go” before consumers can use them with confidence, a new assessment has concluded.

Solicitors will be able to close down thousands of client accounts with residual balances of up to £500 and donate the money to charity under plans unveiled yesterday by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The regulator is also planning to end the annual ‘keeping of the roll’ exercise.

The referral fee ban has reduced the number of nuisance calls made to potential personal injury claimants, the government has claimed. It is also looking to increase its powers over claims management companies yet further so that it can fine them up to 20% of their turnover.

The UK’s top law firms have become increasingly sceptical about listing on the stock market or taking on private equity investment, according to new research.

Irwin Mitchell has signalled its intention to grow “substantially” in the coming years after securing a £60m four-year finance package with three major UK banks. The deal also includes a £30m ‘accordion’ facility for further finance if required for a big transaction.