Practice Management

Growing student debt means the length of time would-be lawyers spend studying needs to shrink, the chairman of the Legal Services Board has declared. David Edmonds also floated the idea of adopting the accountants’ training model, in which professional training takes place during full-time employment, while appearing to throw cold water on the idea of aptitude testing for students before they begin postgraduate legal education.

Professor Richard Susskind’s prediction that law firms could find themselves competing with legal publishers moved a step closer to reality today after Thomson Reuters moved into legal process outsourcing by acquiring ambitious provider Pangea3.

The three biggest legal regulators have set out the terms of their two-year joint review of education and training. The review – being undertaken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards – will examine the educational requirements placed upon individuals entering the sector and their regulatory function.

The government will push ahead with plans to take client account interest and apply it to the legal aid fund irrespective of the possible impact on clients and solicitors, an equalities impact assessment indicates.

Everyone in a law firm should be involved in sales and business development, says Kate Fleming of HuthwaiteFleming, and she explains how those who see themselves solely as service providers can help create value for clients

Legal Futures readers have been offered a 10% discount to Managing Partner magazine’s upcoming two-day conference, Risk Management for Law Firms. You need to book before 19 November to claim the discount. Quote booking code ‘LF10’. The conference, on 1 and 2 December, aims to help lawyers defend their firms against strategic and operational risk. Legal Futures is a media partner.

Universities minister David Willetts has expressed interest in aptitude testing as a way to address “inequities in earlier educational experience” for those looking to enter the professions, it has emerged. The news comes as a survey released today shows that having a public school education makes it seven times more likely you will become a legal professional than if you are state-educated.

London-based specialist property law firm Pemberton Greenish has successfully upgraded to LawSoft 10 from Legal Futures Associate Pilgrim Systems last month in a project that was completed in just two days.

Leading case management software provider and Legal Futures Associate Eclipse Legal Systems has unveiled a new board structure on the back of continued growth.

There is a strong case for some lawyers facing periodic reaccreditation and for creating a single badge to help consumers distinguish between regulated and unregulated providers, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said in a report published today. Responding to a request from the Legal Services Board for consumer perspectives on quality, the panel drew on consumer research it commissioned and found support for lawyers undergoing “a regular MOT”.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has launched an investigation into the impact of more borrowers and lenders having separate legal representation as lenders continue to restrict their panels, it has emerged. It has also given a cautious welcome to the Law Society’s new conveyancing quality scheme and sounded a warning over suggestions that the requirements of solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance will be relaxed.

Adrian Bennett of Thorneycroft explains how his firm has benefited from installing Proclaim Case Management and Proclaim Accounts from Legal Futures Associate Eclipse.

After all the predictions of solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums going through the roof, figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority show a 15% fall across the profession for 2010/11, back to pre-recession levels. However, there has been a massive 57% jump in the number of firms in the assigned risks pool.

The second in a series of extracts from Climate Change, a report on the impact of the Legal Services Act published by accountants Baker Tilly, looks at the growing role of outsourcing both front and back-office work, and how far it could go.

The Legal Ombudsman service needs to work out the limits of its jurisdiction “and quickly”, as new business models emerge, chief ombudsman Adam Sampson has said. Mr Sampson said that with the pace of legal services reform accelerating and the legal services market “rapidly moving away from a reliance on the high street solicitor” and towards new providers entering the market “with very different business models”, it is very important to consumers that LeO is clear about what is and is not within its jurisdiction.