Practice Management

Three-quarters of lawyers who sought help with health problems last year complained of stress, support charity LawCare has reported, while warning that drug abuse in the profession is worse than its statistics indicate. LawCare opened 517 new case files in 2010, down from a record 549 in 2009, splitting 60/40 between women and men.

Stratford-upon-Avon law firm Lodders has upgraded its practice management system to SOS Connect, the flagship product of Legal Futures Associate Solicitors Own Software. Lodders has installed the system in a ‘big bang’ implementation across three offices and 120 users.

A spiralling number of partnership disputes is encouraging the development of specialist alternative dispute resolution, experts have said. It has led to the Association of Partnership Practitioners launching a Directory of Partnership Dispute Arbitrators and Mediators.

Experts at the Institute of Legal Finance & Management explain the impact of today’s VAT rise on billing by solicitors, barristers and other lawyers

The Legal Ombudsman service has issued its first formal decision, it has emerged. The first case to go all the way through to a final decision by an ombudsman concerned a complaint over delay and whether the costs were explained clearly.

The crackdown on personal injury advertising started today as the Ministry of Justice unveiled plans to ban inducements to bring a claim. The current rules for claims management companies only ban the offer of “immediate” cash payments or similar benefits, but a consultation issued today proposes extending that to all inducements for making a claim.

A case study from Legal Futures Associate Eclipse Legal Systems: Helphire Group plc is the UK’s leading provider of accident assistance services to drivers involved in non-fault accidents. From humble beginnings in 1992, Helphire today employs over 1,700 people across five locations and offers a range of services including vehicle repairs, replacement hire, uninsured loss recovery and injury claims management.

In the wake of the recent ruling that a fixed-share partner is a partner, not an employee, Mark Briegal of Legal Futures Associate Ralli looks at the advantages to both law firm and lawyer of a fixed share over a salary

Some elite London law firms are passing over well-qualified, white working-class job applicants in favour of middle-class graduates from elite universities who they think they are better for their image, new research says. The firms studied had successfully recruited ethnic minority candidates as part of diversity programmes, but rejected able working-class students because their appearance or accent was not thought “smart” enough.

Legal process outsourcing (LPO) will increasingly become a strategic priority for law firms in the coming year and a growth in the number of UK-based LPO providers is likely, it was predicted this week.

Manchester-based law firm United Solicitors has invested in the Proclaim case management system from Legal Futures Associate Eclipse for a practice-wide roll-out.

Heathrow-based energy and shipping law firm Curtis Davis Garrard (CDG) and Oxfordshire commercial firm BrookStreet des Roches LLP have both switched to Pilgrim Systems’ practice management software from Iris Legal Solutions.

Law firms’ anti-risk measures are likely to be probed more thoroughly by insurers if the common professional indemnity insurance renewal date is abolished, according to a leading industry insider. He also revealed in detail a number of “creative accounting” techniques used by insurers to reduce their exposure to the assigned risks pool by declaring premiums that may be £60m less than actually received.

Nearly half of solicitors are impossible to get hold of after 5pm, a poll of 2,000 clients has found. The survey of consumers who had recently used a solicitor, carried out by solicitors’ network Contact Law, found that 47% considered it impossible, while 15% said they could rarely reach their lawyer after 5pm. Just 38% said their legal adviser could be easily contacted after that time.

Leading case management software provider, Eclipse Legal Systems, has announced further investment in its market-leading road traffic accident claims solution.