News

Solicitors should not rely on clients who express a desire for local, personal services, Professor Stephen Mayson has warned. He also said the “insulting” distinction in law firms between fee-earners and support staff is holding them back.

Lawyers who sign up as suppliers to US online legal documents business Rocket Lawyer – which is coming to the UK next year – will be expected to do a significant amount of work for nothing, founder Charley Moore has revealed.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to roll out supervision of large City and national law firms through relationship management after a successful pilot. The year-long pilot also highlighted outsourcing as an issue to which the SRA needs to pay particular attention.

Creativity and collaboration should be the priority for law firms looking to fend off the threats from a liberated legal market, with joint ventures, referral networks and share offerings all possible solutions, last week’s Legal Futures conference was told.

Our regular round-up of news you need to know includes the appeal court quashing an ILEX disciplinary ruling, delays for solicitors renewing practising certificates, a survey of young drivers on referral fees, a survey finding support for outsourcing and much more besides.

The “inexcusable delay” in enabling the Solicitors Regulatory Authority to start licensing alternative business structures could make private investors think twice about entering the legal sector, the Legal Futures conference heard this week.

The legal aid and Jackson reforms should come into force in October 2012, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly confirmed yesterday, as Labour launched a bid to make paying a referral fee a criminal offence punishable by up to six months in prison.

Lord Justice Jackson has urged an Association of Costs Lawyers working group looking at a new way of presenting solicitors’ costs to continue its work “with all due expedition”. It says costs should be presented by reference to ‘phases, tasks and activities’.

The Law Society is to resuscitate its annual conference next year, hoping to attract at least 300 people to Celtic Manor in Wales and make a decent profit from it. The conference was stopped several years ago because it was losing money.

QualitySolicitors has received a major cash injection that will accelerate the nationwide expansion of its brand, after private equity house Palamon Capital Partners took a majority stake. The plan is to have over 1,000 branches by the end of next year.