Practice Management

Twelve large City law firms have registered their interest with a novel recruitment business that places senior lawyers with followings as consultants at law firms, allowing them to run their own practices and keep most of their billings, while drawing on the support and reputation of the firm.

News round-up takes in an important court victory for the Legal Services Commission on legal aid payments, a major survey showing that City lawyer salaries are very much on the up and partners borrowing more to pay tax bills.

The Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority have been granted leave to intervene in a High Court case on whether professional indemnity insurers should be able to effectively cap cover by aggregating claims against a firm – with a bill of £50m at stake.

The fallout from the financial crisis as well as growing threats from the legal process outsourcing industry is making it even more difficult for legal practices to juggle client expectations and fee income, says Peter Collins. Many are looking to manage their own resources more effectively.

There is no regulatory justification for retaining the 30-year-old policy of minimum salaries for trainee solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. It also admitted to concerns that the Legal Education and Training Review’s timetable is too tight.

The Legal Services Board, Bar Council and 10 top law firms have signed the government’s ‘Business Compact’ on social mobility to end the “who you know, not what you know” culture, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced.

Solicitors and insurers should share equally any exposure to the assigned risks pool in the 2012-13 indemnity year to ensure insurers have “skin in the game”, the Law Society is to urge. However, the profession’s liability could still reach £30m.

People aged 30 or over who choose to re-train as barristers are at a significant disadvantage to younger applicants, according to research from King’s College London. It also confirmed a continuing bias in favour of those with an Oxbridge education, but not gender.

Almost half of partners and staff at the typical top 50 law firm are now on LinkedIn, nearly double the number in 2010, new research has found. It comes as the Law Society publishes the first formal guidance to solicitors on the use of social media.

The legal profession “is not doing enough” to make itself more representative of society, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed yesterday. While “intergenerational social mobility is the principal objective of the Coalition’s social policy”, government cannot do this alone, he said.

Students taking an aptitude test designed to weed out those likely to fail the Bar training course could be given a once-only opportunity to pass, it has emerged, after members of the Bar Standards Board raised questions about the policy of allowing unlimited attempts.

The narrowing gap between wages paid in the UK and in booming Asian economies mean offshore legal process outsourcing providers are facing a growing threat from law firms setting up their own onshore operations, an LPO consultancy has claimed.

“Unthinking reliance” on the indicative behaviours in the Code of Conduct is not a risk-free approach to compliance, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. Larger firms should also not appoint their senior or managing partners to the role of compliance office for legal practice.

West country firm Ashfords was named conveyancer of the year in a major industry award ceremony last week. It also won the large conveyancer of the year gold medal, while Wiltshire practice Awdry Bailey & Douglas won small conveyancer of the year for firms with up to 15 fee-earners.

Goodwill may start to reappear in law firms’ accounts as the prospect of external finance and the growing trade in legal practices drives a new push to put a value on them, a leading expert has predicted.