News

Our regular round-up of other news you need to know include the Law Society confirming a 23% fall in the cost of practising for solicitors, Shoosmiths joining the Institute of Customer Service, Bevan Brittan helping the BSB, and Herbert Smith formally opening in Belfast.

The Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW) will apply to become a regulator of will-writing services should the Legal Services Board decide to make it a reserved activity, it has confirmed. It called on the board and the government “to take prompt action to implement the recommendations” of today’s consumer panel report.

The Legal Services Board today launched its first statutory investigation into whether to extend the scope of regulation, after its consumer panel recommended making will-writing a reserved activity. It goes further, however, by looking at what measures are required to protect consumers in the probate and estate administration markets as well,

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to crack down on indemnity insurers that restructure law firms’ cover so as to reduce their exposure to the assigned risks pool. The move comes despite the fact that an investigation of the practice is ongoing and has yet to reach a conclusion on whether the previous rules were breached.

Mid-market law firms are responding cautiously to the changing legal services market, with just 14% saying they are actively considering external investment and 21% anticipating a merger or major restructuring in the next year, according to new research.

Solicitors who offer financial services and plan to become alternative business structures could be forced out of the market by plans to plug a gap in consumer protection created by the Legal Services Act, the Financial Services Authority has admitted.

Indemnity insurance premiums for law firms with no new claims and no significant change in circumstances are still set to rise 10% this year, a leading broker has warned. Predicting a “tough” 2011, Lockton also called for a “fundamental review of the whole conveyancing process”.

Justice minister Lord McNally has called for a crackdown on claims management companies and said the government is sympathetic to a referral fee ban, as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill enters its committee stage tomorrow.

Some 138 law firms have closed after entering the assigned risks pool in the past two years, while solicitors who do not pay their ARP premiums are being pursued into bankruptcy, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has reported. Most of the firms (119) shut through an orderly wind-down, while 19 were closed by an SRA intervention.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has already received “strong interest” in ABS investment from abroad and from non-English law firms that want to use the structure, it has revealed. They includes one of China’s largest law firms.