Practice Management

Emerging countries and large corporations will lead the way on court technology while the UK and USA lag behind, experts at the Global Law Summit in London have predicted just a week after the Civil Justice Council unveiled its blueprint for online dispute resolution.

Eight of the ten most successful law firms at showcasing their expertise online and distributing it via social media fall outside of the UK’s top 50, even though as a whole there is a lot more that large firms can do to improve their standing on Twitter, new research has found.

Fewer than half the lawyers in central and local government are satisfied with their jobs and only a third with their pay, research by the Law Society has revealed.

Regulators need to do more with the diversity data they now collect in order to drive improvements in recruitment and particularly progression and retention within the profession, the Legal Services Board will shortly say.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has apologised for releasing information that made it appear as if there had been a massive rise in training places last year – when in fact the number has stayed static.

The TV advertising battle between legal brands stepped up this week with Slater & Gordon launching a new campaign with the message ‘Your case is our cause’. Meanwhile, the share price of Quindell plc, part of which S&G is in talks to buy, continues to fluctuate.

Would-be lawyers have designed an app that they claim is the first “artificially intelligent attorney”, able to conduct legal searches in answer to natural language queries, based on IBM’s cognitive computer, Watson.

It is time for a “radical and fundamental change” in the way the courts deal with low-value claims, a major report argues today, calling for the introduction of state-backed online dispute resolution across England and Wales in 2017.

East Anglian practice Ashton KCJ has become what is thought to be the first law firm in the UK to introduce a ‘paid time-off’ policy, which focuses on productivity rather than time in the office by allowing all salaried employees to take the holiday they need without the constraint of a set number of days per year.

Over-50s company Saga has launched the first television advertising campaign for its legal services division, satirising the notion of lawyers being long-winded. There adverts envisage what life would be like if everyone spoke like a lawyer

Veyo, the Law Society-backed business that will shortly bring its conveyancing portal to the market, says the high-profile advertising during last week’s Wales v England rugby match did its job in kick-starting its outreach to key players in the home-buying market.

Patient Claims Line, a consumer brand of Fletchers solicitors, has become sponsor of ITV daytime show Judge Rinder, in one of the first deals of its kind.

The debate over national versus local legal brands is set to begin again after Norfolk firm Clapham & Collinge announced it was “reclaiming its independence” by leaving the QualitySolicitors network after four years.

The High Court last week threw out a £71m claim against trade union practice Thompsons which sought to blame it for the collapse of a law firm which had tried to bring group litigation on behalf of thousands of miners.

North-west firm Fletchers Solicitors has launched a medical negligence marketing network with three other niche practices in a bid to compete with the biggest players in the market.