Practice Management

A solicitor whose law firm partner has gone to jail for four years for mortgage fraud has lost her bid to have the £4.65m losses being sought from her covered by the firm’s professional indemnity insurer, even though she was not alleged to have had any personal involvement in the frauds.

Divorce pioneers Amicable Apps have launched a ground-breaking advice service to complement the launch of the final version of their app. Clients who want more help in handling their divorce than the app can provide are directed to ‘divorce coaches’, who could be non-practising lawyers but may have no legal training at all.

The technology behind an artificial intelligence app created to help businesspeople draft confidentiality agreements will be extended to other commercial and consumer products such as wills, and may in time be suitable for in family law cases, according to its creator.

In the first of a new series of features profiling lawtech start-ups, we investigate Weclaim.com, a business working to use technology to automate small claims on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, and eventually expects claims to be resolved without human involvement.

The government should pilot its plans to digitise low-level summary convictions with TV licence evasion, rather than train and tram fare evasion, the Law Society has said. It also opposed piloting the online system on statutory fixed fines for low-level anti-social and nuisance offending.

A judge has ruled that the advice lawyers gave in ancillary relief proceedings was negligent and that if the claimant had been properly advised, he would have settled on better terms. But he dismissed an allegation that the solicitor had fabricated her file notes.

Privately educated people still dominate the legal profession, with barriers to entry for those from less affluent backgrounds are even more acute at the Bar than among solicitors, the Social Mobility Commission said yesterday.

The University of Law is to stop claiming that it is the “leading” law school in the UK in the wake of a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority. The watchdog upheld a complaint about an advert published by ULaw after finding the evidence supplied by the university incompatible with such a claim.

Black and minority ethnic (BME) consumers of legal services are getting a “raw deal” when choosing and using legal services, according to the Legal Services Consumer Panel, after its research showed levels of trust, loyalty and satisfaction lower among BME groups that white British consumers.

A will-writing company has been fined £30,000 for making unsolicited marketing calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service. It used information from a third-party company, which claimed the people on its list had opted in to receive unsolicited direct marketing calls.

There need to be more women and ethnic minorities at senior levels of law firms and taking silk, the Lord Chancellor said yesterday as she pledged action to “force the pace of change” in improving diversity in the legal profession. She announced new measures to encourage experienced lawyers from all fields – and especially solicitors – to seek senior judicial roles.

Technology is transforming the world at a furious pace and artificial intelligence (AI) and the legal frameworks that will emerge from it and similar developments, offer “massive opportunities” for lawyers, according to a leading futurologist.

Fast-growing national practice DWF has become the first law firm to join the British Quality Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation set up by government and industry which describes itself as Europe’s largest corporate membership organisation dedicated to performance improvement. Other members include Marks & Spencer, Virgin Media and O2.

A “brand-driven” solicitors’ practice specialising in employment law has become an alternative business structure in order to bring its ‘virtual’ barristers’ chambers under the ABS umbrella. Once the concept is proven, it aims to roll it out across other areas of practice.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal will today begin hearing a training provider’s claim that the Law Society acted anti-competitively by requiring law firms to buy its own training in order to maintain their Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation.