Practice Management

A judge has told a litigant-in-person that a road traffic accident she was involved in was not to blame for her failure to secure a training contract. Judge Walden-Smith said the “sad fact” was that many “competent individuals” failed to obtain a contract.

A two-partner central London law firm has succeeded in striking out a professional negligence claim for over £8m. Master Bowles said the claimants had allowed the proceedings to sink into “indefinite abeyance”.

A growing medical negligence marketing network has launched a £1m TV advertising campaign that aims to differentiate itself from other firms that “lack transparency when dealing with clients”. The first instalment of the campaign premiered during an ad break for Coronation Street.

The Law Society’s membership board has approved plans for a long-term campaign to boost the ‘solicitor brand’, which will include bigger businesses and in-house lawyers as buyers of legal services. It is due to be launched next year.

An equal gender balance among practising barristers is “unlikely ever to be achieved” if current trends continue, a Bar Council report has warned. However, there was better news on BAME representation, which is due to hit 20%.

First he allowed solicitors to join, now the founder of RateMyBarrister is relaunching the website as legalbods.com, because “people who need legal advice often ask if anyone knows any good ‘legal bods'”. William Rees said his focus was on obtaining more detailed data from clients.

National Accident Helpline (NAH) and seven personal injury law firms, including Irwin Mitchell, are launching an Ethical Marketing Charter today. NAH will administer the scheme and handle complaints about possible breaches.

A leading QC is to take part in a pioneering free direct access video surgery later this month. Stephen Harvey QC will be discussing business risk and regulation via a new online video platform. The approach has also won the backing of the Bar Council.

Some partners in small law firms are charging £50 per hour – only £10 more than the lowest paid fee-earners, a survey has found. In some firms equity partners took home less than non-partners.

The High Court has dismissed a claim against a firm of solicitors, despite finding it negligent in failing to raise the absence of a covenant in restraint of competition during the purchase of a commercial property. It considered the lengths that a solicitor is expected to go to beyond facilitating the immediate transaction.

An end to a compulsory minimum level of professional indemnity insurance (PII) and replacing the compensation fund with an insurance policy are among the ideas for reform of client protection arrangements put forward by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Law firms in England and Wales have imported the practice used by some American firms of offering clients the opportunity to reduce bills if they perceive poor service, it has emerged.

A law firm with offices in Italy and England 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 High Court has ruled.

Owners and managers of small to medium-sized businesses begin by searching the internet when looking for specialist legal help, a survey by Google has found. Individuals still preferred to rely on friends. Meanwhile, the use of mobile devices to search for law firms is “going bananas”.

The number of people receiving unsolicited personal injury marketing messages has changed little in the last three years, research by YouGov has found. Meanwhile, a claims management company has been rapped over the knuckles for not making clear in a television advert that calls from mobiles to its 0800 number would not be free.