News

Mid-sized law firms in England and Wales should consider the opportunities presented by outsourcing parts of their work to Northern Ireland, it was claimed last week. The province is not just an option for law firms opening a captive to do their own work or for legal process outsourcing companies to set up operations

Solicitors have repaid nearly £10m to miners who had sums wrongly deducted from their damages, Legal Futures can reveal. The Legal Complaints Service has now closed the last complaint arising from the miners compensation scandal ahead of its formal shut-down this month.

There is widespread public opposition to the government’s civil funding reforms, according to a survey seen exclusively by Legal Futures. The survey of more than 2,000 people by pollster Populus found that four in five (82%) people think that the current ‘no win, no fee’ system is fair.

Alternative business structures (ABSs) “may not be as big a threat” to small firms as some fear, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has suggested. A draft impact assessment also argued that ABSs could help equality and diversity in the legal profession by breaking the traditional partnership model that has held it back.

The Legal Services Board has for the first time granted an application to extend the reach of reserved legal activities, giving the Institute of Legal Executives the power to award the right to conduct litigation to associate prosecutors.

The Legal Ombudsman has criticised changes to the minimum terms and conditions for solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance that were approved by its parent Legal Services Board just last year.

Removing financial institutions from compulsory professional indemnity insurance cover will cause “serious detriment to clients and solicitors” if it is forced through this year as planned, mortgage lenders have warned.

The government is encouraging barristers to proceed “full steam ahead” with plans to compete with solicitors’ firms for legal aid block contracts, it has emerged. Peter Lodder, chairman of the Bar Council, also revealed that a government consultation on competitive tendering for legal aid contracts could be launched as early as the end of May.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority will rebuff any efforts to restrict its ability to regulate alternative business structures (ABSs) that are 100% owned by non-lawyers, its chief executive has said. There are suggestions of a compromise on its ABS licensing application that would mean the SRA not regulating ABSs that are wholly externally owned, at least initially.

Frontline regulators are letting down consumers by failing to collect information on how lawyers are handling complaints, a review by the Legal Services Board has concluded. This would make it difficult for them “to identify systemic issues and adopt a targeted approach to regulation”.