Technology

Some 60% of conveyancing firms refuse to give fee quotes over the phone and, whether they do or not, the majority then fail to follow-up with their prospective client, ‘mystery shopper’ research has revealed.

A High Court judge has ordered the take-down of pages of an anti-solicitor website that contain defamatory statements about a law firm, after a litigation opponent alleged their publication was “evidence that the firm was disreputable”.

Global law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner will be using artificial intelligence across every practice area within three years, the man credited with bringing AI technology to its real estate department has predicted.

Legal services disruptor Axiom has claimed to be “the undisputed market leader in all things contracting” after launching an online platform that enables businesses to handle routine contracts with little effort.

Radical changes are being considered for government contracts for digital services, including removing “negative language”, limiting sentences to two lines and hosting boilerplate clauses online. Use of visual images is also being encouraged.

A free version of conveyancing portal Veyo, called Free2Convey, is to be launched by the Legal Software Suppliers Association (LSSA) at the end of this month. Matt Lancaster, chair of the LSSA, said he hoped as many law firms as possible would use it.

Riverview Law has completed a “multi-million” pound deal to buy an American knowledge automation business as part of its plans to develop the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal market. It said the deal to buy CliXLEX was a “major step” towards the creation of ‘virtual assistants’

Des Hudson, former chief executive of the Law Society, has left his post as chair of conveyancing portal Veyo, it has been announced. His replacement, Ian Gray, is a ‘turnaround management’ specialist.

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.

CourtNav, an online tool designed to help litigants in person fill out court forms, could be offered not only by an advice service based at the High Court but by advice agencies around the country, it has emerged. It won the access to justice through IT award at this week’s Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards.

The court system is on the verge of a “profound revolution” as technology sweeps away the old way of conducting litigation of all types, Sir Brian Leveson said yesterday, including dealing with lower-level criminal cases entirely online.

The Bar Council has joined forces with the two Preston-based barristers behind the Direct Access Portal to relaunch it as the “go-to website” for consumers looking for a barrister. The portal will replace the Bar Council’s existing direct access register.

Lauren Riley, a solicitor entrepreneur who appeared on ‘The Apprentice’, is launching a bid next week to raise £150,000 for her legal app through crowdfunding. She said about 80 small and medium-sized law firms had registered an interest in the product.

A new video platform has been hailed as the “missing link” in improving the ability of direct access barristers to attract more clients. Virtual chambers ShenSmith has been trialling ODRO Vision.

The chief executive of Britain’s biggest conveyancing firm, myhomemove, has predicted that Veyo, the online portal launched yesterday by the Law Society and Mastek, “will fail”. Doug Crawford was unveiling a new version of myhomemove’s eWay.