Legal Services Act

A collaboration of lawyers, calling itself the Chancery Lane Project, is to publish a set of model laws and contract clauses later this month to help the profession around the world fight climate change.

Partners and staff at listed law firm Gateley sold £11m worth of shares yesterday – making £27m since it went public – amid a burst of news about listed legal businesses, including Knights and Redde.

The Bar Council has launched an outspoken attack on a planned 20% rise in the budget of the Legal Ombudsman. The Law Society also strongly opposed the move.

Law firms must recognise that the market for wills is changing and that younger people are attracted by online wills, after research showed the average age of will-makers was 58.

Smaller law firms are unable to pay the high salaries that top candidates for jobs are demanding and this is putting them under economic pressure, a survey of 4,000 practices has concluded.

The American Bar Association yesterday encouraged states to consider “innovative approaches to the access to justice crisis” but made clear it was not recommending alternative business structures.

A niche London disputes practice has become the first law firm to sign up to the Good Business Charter – an ethical business initiative that supported by both the CBI and TUC.

The four leading will-writing brands are beginning to take “a noticeable market share”, new research has suggested. It also found that a majority of probate matters are now handled on a fixed-fee basis.

Listed law firm Knights is stepping up its consolidation strategy, unveiling its third acquisition of 2020 with a deal to buy a Nottingham law firm for up to £8.3m, and agreeing a new £40m credit facility.

A north-west law firm has launched a referral scheme for other solicitors, against a national backdrop where the survival of networks formerly in Pannone’s Connect2Law suggests the model is alive and well.