Practice Management

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.

The Law Society is considering whether any law firm which recruits trainee solicitors should have to undergo mandatory training in equality and diversity, Legal Futures can report. It may also work with the largest City law firms to help them recruit more black and minority ethnic lawyers.

The recent case of a Scottish advocate’s stolen, unencrypted laptop raises some important questions regarding data controller responsibility, portable media (not just laptops) and the options available for securing such media, explains Matt Torrens.

A new third-party litigation funder enters the market today promising to target far lower-value commercial disputes than other providers, and not take a percentage of damages as its fee – with a professional negligence expert warning that lawyers could face legal action for not considering their clients’ funding options.

QCs should lose their title if they fall below an acceptable standard, the Legal Services Consumer Panel suggested today in a report that calls on legal bodies that run voluntary quality schemes to improve checks on lawyers’ continuing competence so as to boost consumer confidence.

The body representing licensed conveyancers has launched a quality assurance scheme uniquely linked to their regulator in a bid to help detect mortgage fraud. The move by the Society of Licensed Conveyancers goes significantly further than the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme.

An aptitude test that indicates whether Bar students will pass their exams is “the best single predictor of course outcomes”, a pilot study has concluded. The Bar Standards Board is pressing ahead with plans to introduce the test formally in autumn 2012.

New figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority indicate that the long-predicted wave of claims against solicitors over mortgage fraud is fast becoming a reality. There are now 770 open claims against the Solicitors Compensation Fund relating to mortgage fraud.

Lawyers have been warned over their duty to protect personal information, after a barrister was found to have breached the Data Protection Act for failing to encrypt a laptop containing sensitive personal data which was later stolen.

The Law Society is to launch a campaign aimed at moving flexible working – for both women and men – “into the mainstream of employment practice in law practices”. It has identified “buy-in” at senior partner level as the key challenge.

Solicitors paid £256m for the compulsory layer of professional indemnity insurance – the highest amount since the first year of buying insurance on the open market – Solicitors Regulation Authority figures have shown.

The challenge for legal price comparison sites is to reconcile the public’s desire for an instant quote and fixed fees “with the reality that many areas of law are complex, lengthy, unpredictable, and, as such, cannot be achieved on a fixed-fee basis”, a Law Society report has concluded.