Practice Management

The most profitable small and medium-sized legal practices generate almost £1m in fee income per equity partner, nearly three times that of the least profitable, new research has revealed. It also highlighted the significant impact that gearing has on profitability.

Consumers using online legal services should have access to proper redress, the Legal Ombudsman has suggested. Adam Sampson said he was not convinced there is a difference between a legal product and a legal service.

Work on increasing social mobility in the legal profession is losing ground amid concerns over the effectiveness of the many separate initiatives aimed at increasing diversity, the latest paper from the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) has suggested.

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”.

Scrapping the minimum salary for trainee solicitors is likely to stimulate more training contracts – but the majority will pay below the current minimum level, a Solicitors Regulation Authority report has concluded. However, the negative impact on diversity is not as clear-cut as critics think.

Law firms’ terms of business need to clearly provide them with adequate rights to stop work for a client who refuses to pay, solicitors have been warned following an important Court of Appeal ruling yesterday.

Applicants for pupillage who are white, male, attended a fee-paying school or Oxbridge, or have parents who are educated to degree level are all more likely to succeed than those without such characteristics, Bar Standards Board research has found.

Professional indemnity insurers will have to disclose their credit ratings to solicitors under plans to be approved by the SRA next month. However, it is to drop the requirement that insurers give policyholders a month’s notice of their intention not to renew cover.

The College of Law is to target expansion of its new undergraduate law degree following its sale to Montague Private Equity. The deal separates the legal education and training business from the college’s charitable activities, with the proceeds of the sale going into a £200m-plus fund.

A former senior solicitor at City firm SNR Denton is facing a £600,000 bill after the High Court ordered her to repay the firm and its insurer losses they suffered as a result of her involvement in the payment of a bribe.

The prospect of trainee solicitors claiming housing benefit and taking on second jobs because the minimum salary has been scrapped “is not the type of image that befits the profession”, the Law Society has claimed.

Prospective trainee solicitors at Reed Smith are to conduct projects for the international firm’s clients as part of an innovative legal practice course that integrates legal and business learning and leads to a unique Masters qualification – the MA (LPC with Business).

The Bar Standards Board is formally to seek the introduction of an aptitude test for prospective Bar professional training course students from this autumn, setting the pass rate at a level that would eliminate the weakest 10% of students.

Regional law firm Mills & Reeve will next month launch a fixed-price online know-how and training package for family lawyers that it claims will enable practitioners to compete in a shrinking market.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to consider retaining the minimum salary for trainee solicitors at the level of the national minimum wage after discovering that without it trainees would be classed as apprentices and so could be paid just £2.60 an hour in their first year – less than £5,000.