Practice Management

Four times as many law graduates will be able to practise as solicitors after the solicitors qualifying examination comes in in 2021, a move that will be “transformative” for access to the law.

There will not be another round of court closures for the time being, but this may change as technology takes hold, justice secretary David Gauke said yesterday.

The government-funded Legal Access Challenge has received more than 85 expressions of interests in applying for funding, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said yesterday.

Achieving buy-in for technology regulation from everyone involved in lawtech – from developers to users – is crucial to it working well, according to an analysis looking at the lessons for legal regulators that can be drawn from the medical and financial sectors.

An employment tribunal has comprehensively rejected a disability discrimination claim brought by a paralegal who worked for well-known personal injury firm Ralli.

The Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill had its first reading in the House of Commons yesterday after the government added further protection for those unable or unwilling to use online processes.

Four in ten law firms are doing more professional training following the end of the hours-based approach, research by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found.

A robot claims handler which can take “subjective decisions” about the reliability of witnesses will not replace its human colleagues, the law firm behind it has said.

Venture capitalists have launched a fund aimed at lawtech start-ups, with an emphasis on businesses that hope to exploit big data for corporate decision making.

An app that offers users the full range of consumer legal advice and support for up to £24 a month is being rolled out after a pilot saw 70% of users renew their subscription.

Technology allowing litigants to run a civil money claim online from beginning to end should be in place by this time next year, with nearly 70,000 having already used the more limited version available now.

Professor Richard Susskind, IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice, clashed with MPs yesterday over whether the government’s court modernisation programme is doing enough to combat digital exclusion.

Only 33% of new partners at Europe’s biggest law firms are women with bias from both male colleagues and male clients the main reason for gender imbalance, a report has found.

Former Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge yesterday defeated government efforts to limit the extent to which future holders of the post will have a veto over the work of the online procedure rule committee.

The march of blockchain-backed property transactions accelerated this week when a high-value commercial building went on the market with online execution offered by a digital estate agent.