Practice Management

The government’s insistence on pressing ahead with a ban on cold-calling by claims management companies (CMCs) that many argue does not go far enough will be put to the test today. MPs will consider the changes made during the committee stage of the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill and various further amendments put forward by the Labour opposition.

A law firm with offices in Italy and England has reached the end of the line in challenging a ruling that it was under a duty to warn British and Irish property investors of the risks of investing in a part of Italy associated with organised crime. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision and the Supreme Court has now refused to hear a second appeal.

Women solicitors are significantly less likely to seek partnership and twice as likely to cite work/life balance or stress as the reason than men, according to a career satisfaction survey. The survey also found that employers are responding to the need to retain valued employees.

Three-quarters (74%) of male lawyers believe there has been progress on gender equality in the legal profession over the past five years but less than half (48%) of their female colleagues agree, a global survey has found. It also said that unconscious bias was the most commonly identified barrier preventing women from reaching senior positions.

The judiciary has threatened to withdraw from the Online Court pilot – which could go public by the end of this month – if there are “any further false claims or data” about the project from Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunals Service. The pilot, for money claims under £10,000, could move from invitation-only to ‘public beta’ stage on 26 March.

Lawyers will be vital to high-end fintech deals even after blockchain transactions become mainstream, according to a solicitor at the forefront of innovating with cutting-edge technology. He was speaking after helping to secure a pioneering use of the distributed ledger to transfer financial securities.

MPs have expressed concern about the government’s “evident preference” for virtual and online justice over traditional, court-based models without the evidence base to justify it. They also said HM Courts and Tribunals Service has not done enough work on how those unable to use online tools will be supported.

A paralegal who was subjected to a “long accumulation of abuse” by the senior partner of a London law firm was the victim of harassment on the grounds of age and sex, an employment tribunal has found. However, most of the specific incidents cited did not amount to harassment because the paralegal received the same kind of general abuse that all staff did.

A bank that relied on inaccurate information supplied by its borrower’s solicitor should not have won a negligence claim against her, because it failed to carry out its own checks, the Supreme Court has ruled. It restored the ruling of the judge at first instance, who held that the bank did not act reasonably.

The latest ‘man versus machine’ contest, which pitted human lawyers against artificial intelligence technology, has shown the machine to be superior in both accuracy and speed. But the best-performing lawyers exceeded even the AI, although it was claimed that they did so in unnatural circumstances for a busy lawyer.

A Kent law firm was negligent for failing to advise properly on a mortgage and valuation report, but this did not cause a couple in Canterbury to buy a house suffering from subsidence, a circuit judge has ruled. He said it was not the firm’s duty to “advise about structural matters when there was a structural survey available”.

If the Legal Services Board is serious about promoting access to justice it must end its silence on the legal aid cuts, lawyers’ organisations have said. The Bar Council accused the oversight regulator of acting like “another department of government” by refusing to comment.

High street solicitors are losing out to specialist conveyancing businesses in capturing clients, new research has shown, but all lawyers still have much to improve on client communication. More than a third of clients would even consider paying more for a premium service, it found.

The Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association are discussing the possibility of a new career path for criminal lawyers involving both defence and prosecution work, it has emerged, after the CBA chair warned of the “decimation” of both the criminal Bar and the solicitors’ profession if no action was taken to tackle an “unprecedented recruitment crisis”.

Legal professionals will escape the artificial intelligence revolution relatively unscathed compared to other occupations, with high educational achievement being a key factor, according to a major report on the long-term impact of automation on jobs.