Practice Management

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is under pressure to ban solicitors from offering potential claimants up-front inducements to bring an action so as to bring them in line with new rules coming into force for claims management companies.

Clients are expressing much more concern about the way the largest UK law firms are managing risk than before – and than the firms’ own lawyers, a survey has found. While just 21% of lawyers perceived risk management to be a “key priority”, 47% of clients thought it was.

Our latest round-up of other news of interest to Legal Futures readers includes a survey of among larger firms about ABS intentions, a lay majority on the BSB, women lawyers convinced male colleagues are paid more, good news for a big LPO provider and much more.

Mid-sized law firms in England and Wales should consider the opportunities presented by outsourcing parts of their work to Northern Ireland, it was claimed last week. The province is not just an option for law firms opening a captive to do their own work or for legal process outsourcing companies to set up operations

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.