Last month the Bar’s regulator, the Bar Standards Board, published its research with people who have used barristers’ services during family legal proceedings. It was published under the headline “Barristers are serving family law clients well, says new BSB research”. One publication for solicitors clearly got the wrong version of the press release, because its headline on the day of publication said “Public considers barristers ‘too expensive’ for family advice, regulator finds”. There ought not to be anything in the BSB report that threatens the solicitors’ profession. The Bar remains a largely referral-based profession. Public access is still a minority activity in family law – and this is unlikely to change.

American law firm advertising is a common source of amazement in our Curated House headquarters. Every so often, another US attorney’s advert will land in our inbox and quickly be shared around the office, often accompanied by audible gasps of disbelief. One particular ad that springs to mind, sent to us by a client, was a feature on the BBC about the self-styled ‘Texas Law Hawk’ – a young Fort Worth criminal lawyer whose ads had been causing a stir in the States. The Law Hawk (aka Bryan Wilson) was even featured in a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial; such is his popularity. For a marketer, being featured in a Super Bowl commercial is probably akin to winning the thing for a sportsperson.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, it takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and one bad one to lose it – as a few jewellers, airlines, car manufacturers, newspapers and banks have discovered in recent times. Law firms are, of course, just like any other business and face the same issue. As we all know, there is only so much disaster recovery and business continuity planning a firm can do, as events have a habit of circumventing even the best of them. Minimisation rather than elimination remains the only realistic goal. So, what can law firm leaders do to minimise reputational risk and the damage that can flow from a reputation impacting event?

It’s hard to miss the recent buzz surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), especially in legal tech, with many of the top 200 firms utilising the technology in some manner. But what about the smaller firms? Do they need AI? Can their infrastructure cope with AI? There are misconceptions that AI is only suitable for larger firms – firms with huge budgets and millions of documents – and therefore unsuitable for smaller firms. But many smaller firms could be missing out on the truly transformative benefits.

The chances are that you may not be entirely sure what a bot or a chatbot is. So, the news that, “starting today, DoNotPay is opening up so that anyone can create legal bots for free (with no technical knowledge)” may be a bit opaque. But bots have their devotees. The picture is of Nadia, an Australian bot being developed to give information on disability benefits with the voice of Cate Blanchett. The editor of Chatbots Magazine (OK, no neutral source) is pretty clear about their future. He writes articles with titles like ‘How bots will completely kill websites and mobile apps’. Joshua Browder, the creator of the DoNotPay parking ticket challenger, is behind what he hopes will be this major expansion of legal bots.