Practice Management

Size, claims record and changes to the number of fee-earners are the factors that influence law firms’ professional indemnity insurance premiums, not practice area or ethnicity, Law Society research has found. A review of the 2010 renewal season found that smaller firms found their premiums going up the most, as did those with a claims history in the previous 12 months.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to crack down on indemnity insurers that restructure law firms’ cover so as to reduce their exposure to the assigned risks pool. The move comes despite the fact that an investigation of the practice is ongoing and has yet to reach a conclusion on whether the previous rules were breached.

Mid-market law firms are responding cautiously to the changing legal services market, with just 14% saying they are actively considering external investment and 21% anticipating a merger or major restructuring in the next year, according to new research.

Indemnity insurance premiums for law firms with no new claims and no significant change in circumstances are still set to rise 10% this year, a leading broker has warned. Predicting a “tough” 2011, Lockton also called for a “fundamental review of the whole conveyancing process”.

James Boyd-Wallis, account director at Legal Futures Associate Byfield Consultancy outlines recent guidance from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Some 138 law firms have closed after entering the assigned risks pool in the past two years, while solicitors who do not pay their ARP premiums are being pursued into bankruptcy, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has reported. Most of the firms (119) shut through an orderly wind-down, while 19 were closed by an SRA intervention.

Jane Ching, Reader at Nottingham Law School, outlines its experience of running the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s work-based learning pilot that offered a route to qualification as a solicitor for those working as paralegals.

Just eight applicants to the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme have been rejected, it has emerged. The number of applicants has now passed 1,000, of which 317 have so far been approved. But Law Society chief executive Des Hudson has told Legal Futures that the scheme’s credibility would not be judged on how many are rejected.

A groundbreaking scheme aimed at young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in a legal career is helping them with their university ambitions, new figures have shown. Students who have gone through the £3m Pathways to Law scheme are more successful in gaining a place at a top university than a comparator group that has not.

A sizeable slice of corporate lawyers is misunderstanding the fundamental drivers of client satisfaction, according to new research which also found that less than a fifth of general counsel have final choice over selecting external legal advisers.

Increases in tuition fees means the overall cost of a law degree is nearly £90,000 and only half of lawyers would have gone to university had it cost as much when they studied, a survey has found. Legal recruiter Laurence Simons argued that this shows UK universities are failing and need to adopt the controversial approach of the philosopher AC Grayling, who is setting up a new private university, and also embrace apprenticeships.

A potential new professional indemnity insurer has blamed the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s failure to tackle the market’s problems more quickly as the reason it will not be offering cover to law firms this year.

There are a number of risks and dangers associated with using an aptitude test to select law students – particularly that it will favour those from privileged and certain class and ethnic backgrounds – a report commissioned by the Legal Services Board has concluded.

The great majority of consumers who have used legal services are satisfied with the outcome, although many do not feel they received good value for money, a survey has found. Worryingly for lawyers likely to face competition from trusted brands after October, however, it suggested significant public distrust of lawyers.

There could be several benefits from using an aptitude test to exclude law students who are most likely to fail the legal practice course (LPC), according to a report for the Law Society. However, it said linking a test to the likelihood of gaining a training contract would be “more difficult” to justify.