Technology

A not-for-profit criminal law firm has launched  a free web app aimed at people who have been issued fines for breaching the Coronavirus Regulations.

One law firm and five lawtech businesses have each received around £100,000 of government money to develop and accelerate commercialisation of their products and services during the pandemic.

A government-backed body is directing funds towards AI products that it hopes will help make the UK the world’s leading developer of high-tech innovations in legal services.

A global law firm is trialling a workflow app developed by one of its associates, who says it could save City practices up to £6m a year by making work allocation more efficient.

The Lord Chief Justice told MPs yesterday that he is “extremely concerned” that the backlogs that have grown across the justice system since March should not be “viewed by anybody as the new normal”.

The Covid-19 pandemic risks the huge progress made in using technology to innovate in legal services and find new ways of working, according to a report from the City of London Corporation.

Minster Law has become the first major personal injury practice to state that it is ready for next year’s whiplash reforms by formally launching its self-service digital claims portal.

Lawtech start-ups set up solely by lawyers grow more slowly than those that with coders among the founders, research by Oxford University has found.

Four in ten parents who have been involved in a remote family hearing say they did not understand it, a major study has discovered. The president of the Family Division said this was “worrying”.

Lawyers have identified reduced client budgets for legal work as the biggest threat to the profession from the pandemic in a new report.

The government’s £1bn court reforms have had a “disappointingly slow” start in collecting the information required to ensure the justice system is fair, according to researchers.

A particularly unwelcome issue for judges hearing cases remotely is that some of the most disturbing elements of serious family cases are being heard at home, a High Court judge has reported.

The family court system has adapted so well to remote working that some courts do not have a backlog of cases, the president of the Family Division said yesterday.

Solicitors are concerned that some new legal technology they buy does not take into account their professional rules and ethical duties because lawtech firms are “not speaking the same language”.

Leeds is poised to become a lawtech innovation powerhouse, according to a report saying there is competition building for established practices among non-traditional providers of legal services.