Practice Management

Leading Ipswich law firm Barker Gotelee has implemented DirectLaw from Legal Futures Associate Epoq, giving family law clients convenient and easy online access to a suite of legal services, including divorce documents and pre-nuptial agreements.

The Legal Ombudsman has criticised changes to the minimum terms and conditions for solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance that were approved by its parent Legal Services Board just last year.

Top 200 law firm Stevens & Bolton LLP has finalised contracts with Legal Futures Associate Pilgrim Systems to replace its legacy practice management system with LawSoft. Based in Guildford, Stevens & Bolton LLP is one of the country’s leading regional… Read More

Removing financial institutions from compulsory professional indemnity insurance cover will cause “serious detriment to clients and solicitors” if it is forced through this year as planned, mortgage lenders have warned.

Frontline regulators are letting down consumers by failing to collect information on how lawyers are handling complaints, a review by the Legal Services Board has concluded. This would make it difficult for them “to identify systemic issues and adopt a targeted approach to regulation”.

Excluding claims by financial institutions from compulsory professional indemnity insurance cover will harm consumers and smaller law firms, cut access to justice and do little to reduce conveyancing claims, the Law Society has said.

This week’s Legal IT show sees Legal Futures Associate Tikit deepen its commitment to the legal software sector with the launch of the Tikit Legal Office platform. But what is it, where does it fit within the market and why should anyone be interested in it?

In the last year ELS International, the London and Poole-based boutique law firm, has completely transformed its image, its offering and management team to deliver ‘fresh legal thinking’ to predominantly high net-worth clients. As part of the shake-up the firm decided to start from scratch as far as IT was concerned and turned to the outsourced accounting and legal software services of Legal Futures Associate Virtual Practices.

Lancashire law firm Davies & Gribbin Solicitors has selected the Proclaim Practice Management software solution from Legal Futures Associate Eclipse for firm-wide rollout.

Whether catering for high end clients from its office in St John’s Wood, north London, or serving the needs of the wider population from its Ipswich base, Attwells Solicitors LLP is determined to provide a modern, efficient service with the focus centred on customer care.

The children of clients are given informal work experience at large commercial law firms “as part of business development”, the first ever research into the subject has found. Students who have had informal work experience while at school have an advantage in pursuing a legal career, but a lack of “social capital” means others are denied access to such opportunities.

Consumers believe that a lawyer who has provided a bad service should be “named and shamed”, research released today has found. However, there are signs that consumers are likely to use published information “in a way that may be at odds with the Legal Ombudsman’s reasons for publication”.

Widespread doubts exist among barristers over aspects of the Bar Standards Board’s equality and diversity reforms, it emerged last week at a consultation event on proposed code of conduct rule changes, where concerns were raised over details of proposed monitoring requirements.

Some 342 law firms have applied to join the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) since it opened last month, the Law Society has revealed to Legal Futures. A spokesman said the number is growing rapidly, with around 20 new applications a day at the moment.

The reasons why one law firm succeeds while another doing similar work fails, boil down to knowing your market, committing to your sector and its clients, and the partners’ contribution, according to a legal thinktank.