Practice Management

The regulators of solicitors and barristers have been accused of failing to collaborate closely enough on their responses to the Legal Education and Training Review, after they announced they would pursue independent strategies for ensuring competency.

A total of 185 law firms have applied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the extended indemnity period of insurance, having failed to secure cover by 1 October – although 10 have already secured a policy.

The next stage of QualitySolicitors’ latest advertising campaign to persuade the public to love lawyers went live yesterday with a series of television adverts. Meanwhile, Slater & Gordon launched the latest part of its TV campaign with an advert focused on employment law.

Leading claims management company First4lawyers yesterday launched a £10m year-long marketing campaign with a new television commercial featuring tennis player-turned-commentator Andrew Castle.

Predictions of a professional indemnity insurance apocalypse appear to have been well wide of the mark, with just 69 firms so far notifying the Solicitors Regulation Authority that they have triggered the new extended indemnity period.

Law firms are suffering from a “nationwide epidemic of missed opportunities” because of the way they deal with telephone enquiries, new mystery shopping research has claimed. In 97% of calls, the handler failed to ask if the caller wanted to go ahead or make an appointment.

The co-founder of PayPal has invested in a start-up that aims to help clients find lawyers and then collaborate with them through an online platform – and is targeting the UK in the next few months – Legal Futures can reveal.

The number of small and medium-sized law firms in financial distress has soared to nearly a quarter of the profession, while one in eight has gone out of business in the last year, according to new figures.

The country’s mortgage lenders have hit out at the Solicitors Regulation Authority for not being transparent in the way it runs its compensation fund, leading to a perception that lenders are being made to carry the can for solicitors’ wrongdoing.

Liverpool law firm Camps has launched a new consumer brand – Your Legal Friend – as part of its “multi-channel” response to the personal injury market. It said the launch follows research to ensure the brand reflects both what the company stands for and delivers what its customers most value.

Misleading funders, inflating work-in-progress valuations and shortages in client account are among the common features of financially unstable firms that are currently under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, it has emerged.

The Legal Services Board is to issue statute-backed guidelines to compel legal regulators to follow its vision of how reforms resulting from the Legal Education and Training Review should be implemented.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority now has 1,200 law firms on its financial stability watchlist, with more likely to join it shortly, it has emerged. It follows the recent request for financial data from 2,000 practices.

Service companies that law firms and others use to employ their staff and shift profit could be the next target of the government tax avoidance crackdown, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has indicated.

Slater & Gordon yesterday launched its first UK television advertising campaign as it bids to become “a household name”. Costing more than £1m in the launch phase, the firm used M&C Saatchi to create a series of adverts, starting with one on personal injury.