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Welcome to the new-look Legal Futures, refreshed and redesigned to be mobile optimised. We have run enough stories highlighting the importance of mobile optimisation, and we are finally practising what we preach.

The proposals by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for reform of compulsory professional indemnity insurance (PII) for solicitors in England & Wales include a reduction in cover to £500,000 (£1m for conveyancing) and exclusion from compulsory cover of the protection for commercial clients whose turnover is in excess of £2m. The proposals also include an aggregate limit of run-off cover of £1.5m (£3m for conveyancing). These limits include claimants’ costs. Leaving clients, solicitors’ staff, and those solicitors and staff who have retired from the profession, to the fate determined for them by those who decide how much cover to buy is like holding the passengers and crew on the Titanic responsible for their fate.

Call me pedantic, but I like precision when I’m talking about compliance. Recently, I was invited to speak at the Internet of Agreements conference on identity. I was giving the legal perspective, specifically around AML/KYC. Of course, identity from an AML perspective has a very specific meaning and purpose, and it became clear to me that, having been immersed in this regulated world for 13 years, that perhaps other people don’t appreciate the nuances of it. The terms CDD/KYC/AML are used interchangeably by non-AML people, to indicate that one approach to identity will work for all three, but it’s not that straightforward.

While discussing the Claims Liability Bill in the House of Lords last month, Conservative Baroness Berridge, a former barrister, voiced her concerns. She argued that, while the bill may well support the government’s aim of reducing fraudulent personal injury claims, this could be at the expense of those most vulnerable, the claimants themselves. “It is a high burden on your Lordships’ House to ensure that the bill hits the target of fraudulent claims as accurately as it can without the shrapnel hitting genuine claimants,” she said. There is good reason for her to be apprehensive.

In March 2018, the Solicitors Regulation Authority published a consultation paper which outlines proposals for reforming the Solicitors’ Compensation Fund and professional indemnity insurance. We have reflected on the proposals and, whilst we have a number of concerns, it’s important to note that not all of the proposals are detrimental and the consultation does present some pragmatic solutions, such as separating the insurer agreement from the minimum wording, which we feel will result in better and more easily understood products. We applaud the SRA for consulting, but we do have serious concerns around the data used and its interpretation of it.

Leaders from across the legal community held a roundtable discussion earlier this month to talk about emotional competency in legal practice and education. The legal professions wellbeing taskforce, which brings together professional bodies, legal educators and regulators, organised the event. The goal was to start a dialogue about how emotions influence our behavior and decision making in the workplace and that understanding and managing these may help to improve lawyer wellbeing.

Over the past 20 years, nearly all aspects of our financial lives have migrated online, from tax returns to banking. Yet arguably the most important and protracted financial process in our lives has remained doggedly devoted to the paper based world. A single signature in Rotherhithe, south-east London, on 4 April, however, may have just lit the touch paper for transforming this process. By signing the UK’s first ever digital mortgage through the government’s new “sign your mortgage deed” service, a signal was sent that the home-buying process is finally on course to be digitised, simplified and streamlined.

Solicitors, and their insurers, dealing with property transactions should look closely at their due diligence procedures following last week’s landmark ruling on liabilities from the Court of Appeal. It is clearly good news for buyers who are victims of identity fraud. Dreamvar UK Ltd v Mishcon de Reya & Mary Monson Solicitors also has implications for anyone holding monies in a client account for a transaction. The ruling is likely to lead to increased professional indemnity insurance premiums for solicitors engaged in property transactions. They should review the terms and conditions of their retainers in light of this ruling.

After months of debate on the court modernisation programme led by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, we now have an authoritative analysis from the National Audit Office. HMCTS chief executive Susan Acland-Hood professed herself happy. The report was “helpful and constructive”. She was pleased that “the NAO acknowledges our ‘early progress’”. Her comments were more reflective of spin than the span of the NAO report. The NAO acknowledges the ambitious nature of the reform. But comments like “HMCTS’s change portfolio presents a very significant challenge” need minimal decoding to reveal a bit of concern.

Crispin Passmore, director of policy at the Solicitors Regulation Authority, writes: We are now nearing the end of a five-year programme to change how the SRA regulates so we can make sure we focus on what matters: high professional standards. Our reforms should help encourage new ways of working, but we also want to help lawyers and business work with us to implement innovations that might be difficult under existing regulations but are still in the public interest. Sometimes advice and guidance are enough, but through SRA Innovate we are also using waivers to existing rules to allow something new to happen safely.