Practice Management

The government should invest in online dispute resolution for small claims – but not until 2016 so lessons can be learnt from pioneering projects in Holland and Canada, a major report has advised. Meanwhile, Professor Richard Susskind has called for ODR to be explored “urgently”.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has opened up a three-month window for solicitors to own up to income they have not declared, or face tougher penalties if they are caught dodging tax.

Riverview Law is setting up a separate business which will own and exploit the technology built by the alternative business structure over the last three years. The first move has been for Riverview itself to launch a range of software modules targeted at in-house legal teams.

The European Commission has launched today a new online find-a-lawyer search engine, enabling potential clients to find lawyers in 17 countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Scotland – but not England and Wales.

The tax benefits for law firms of incorporating have been reduced thanks to surprise changes announced by the Chancellor in this week’s Autumn Statement. Law firms have been incorporating in large numbers, with tax advantages in both the initial transition and the ongoing practice.

Forget the John Lewis Christmas advert – lawyers have stepped up efforts to target the over-50s and the victims of medical accidents in the latest high-profile marketing pushes by QualitySolicitors and First4Lawyers respectively.

The Bar Standards Board has doubled its prediction of how many entities it expects to be overseeing by the end of 2015 after receiving Legal Services Board approval to regulate businesses.

Four law firms have recently lost £2m from their client accounts after falling victim to scammers who tricked them into disclosing bank security information over the telephone, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned.

Solicitor entrepreneur Lauren Riley has described how she has met venture capitalists and tech companies interested in her legal app after appearing in the BBC1 show The Apprentice.

Client, consumer or customer – no single label can describe the relationship that now exists between people and their legal services providers, Professor Stephen Mayson has argued – having previously thought that it was a distinction without a difference.

Robots and artificial intelligence will dominate legal practice within 15 years, perhaps leading to the “structural collapse” of law firms, a report predicting the shape of the legal market has envisaged.

London law firm Hodge Jones & Allen has this week received an apology and “substantial” damages from The Times newspaper over a front-page article which claimed the firm was being sued by a former client for negligence in relation to a MMR vaccine claim.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to end the monopoly currently enjoyed by the Law Society’s ‘Find a Solicitor’ website, by making the data behind it available to commercial comparison sites. It is also to set up own “online regulatory register” for the public.

The “traditionally wide” knowledge gap between lawyers and consumers is “narrowing all the time”, Canadian futurologist Jordan Furlong told delegates at this week’s Legal Futures Annual Conference.

“Overwhelming disagreement” made the Solicitors Regulation Authority abandon a plan to make compliance officers sign declarations that their firms followed the accounts rules, it has emerged. But further changes to accountant’s reports are coming.