Practice Management

There is to be a drive to recruit retiring law firm partners to the senior judiciary in a bid to improve diversity, it has emerged. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, said he is looking at a “more sensible way” of recruiting partners who retire early onto the High Court bench.

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that a TV medical negligence advert for Merseyside personal injury specialists Michael W Halsall Solicitors was “likely to cause undue distress to pregnant viewers”.

The turnover of SME law firms in London and South East rose by 4% this year, according to an annual benchmarking survey by accountants HW Fisher & Co. However, the survey warned that rising overheads would continue to put pressure on profits.

More than a million passengers travelling to and from UK airports are still to claim delayed flight compensation for last year alone, a survey has found. However, it suggested that passengers may prefer to claim compensation directly from airlines.

The Supreme Court has backed a law firm’s arguments that, following a breach of trust, it should have to pay in damages only the amount which the lender would have lost if the breach had not occurred.

Professor Avrom Sherr, one of the country’s leading legal academics, has said that “nobody listens to the Law Society” since it lost its regulatory role.

Legal education providers have warned that the possible introduction of a new, centralised assessment test for all would-be solicitors by the Solicitors Regulation Authority could be “a step back”.

Many of the 1,863 law firms e-mailed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last Thursday that their apparent lack of professional indemnity insurance meant they would have to move into a period of shut-down had cover after all, it emerged.

Barrister entrepreneur William Rees has launched an online drafting service aimed at mainly at solicitors in small firms. The business provides “customised templates”, which aim to be more tailored to lawyers’ requirements and individual cases than traditional precedents.

Law firms and chambers need to accelerate the increase in workforce diversity if they are to ward off the “nuclear” option of quotas being imposed, the Black Solicitors Network (BSN) has warned.

A tribunal judge has described as “beyond comprehension” the failure of a financially struggling law firm to make special arrangements with HMRC under the ‘time to pay’ scheme.

The government has secured an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill banning inducements for personal injury claims offered by unregulated third parties linked to law firms.

Solicitors, consumers and businesses who took part in research for the Solicitors Regulation Authority have given high marks to a draft competence statement, which aims to define the standards needed to enter and remain in the profession.

Average profit per equity partner (PEP) for the top 10 law firms has exceeded £1m for first time since 2008, reaching £1.03m, while they also recorded a record average profit margin of 40%, PwC has reported.

Over 1,300 solicitors – from small practices to some of the biggest in the City – have joined rating and review website VouchedFor, and 1,100 client reviews have already been posted, the company has said.