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Twelve law firms have so far joined claims management companies and legal expenses insurers in the campaign to oppose implementation of the Jackson reforms. The Access to Justice Action Group has already begun lobbying MPs, and also told the justice select committee that the impact of the reforms on solicitors could lead to monopoly suppliers of personal injury legal services. It has also emerged that some restrictions on personal injury advertising are in the offing.

In the wake of the recent ruling that a fixed-share partner is a partner, not an employee, Mark Briegal of Legal Futures Associate Ralli looks at the advantages to both law firm and lawyer of a fixed share over a salary

Some elite London law firms are passing over well-qualified, white working-class job applicants in favour of middle-class graduates from elite universities who they think they are better for their image, new research says. The firms studied had successfully recruited ethnic minority candidates as part of diversity programmes, but rejected able working-class students because their appearance or accent was not thought “smart” enough.

The Australian legal business consolidator Integrated Legal Holdings, one of the country’s (and world’s) two stock exchange-listed law firms, has resumed its acquisitions programme almost two years after its last merger.

Barristers should be allowed to give their own opinions to the media in cases in which they are involved, the Bar Standards Board is to recommend. It is also set to introduce the term “unregistered barrister” to denote a barrister without a practicing certificate who is providing unreserved legal services to the public or small businesses.

The Bar’s regulator has blasted the Legal Services Board for not doing enough to avoid the risk of abuse by solicitors of lawyer-to-lawyer referrals – and warned that they may fall foul of the 2010 Bribery Act.

The Legal Services Board is to measure the working of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal against key performance indicators, a move described by the tribunal as “wholly inappropriate”.

Legal process outsourcing (LPO) will increasingly become a strategic priority for law firms in the coming year and a growth in the number of UK-based LPO providers is likely, it was predicted this week.

All workers at law firms and chambers will be asked whether they are straight, gay or bisexual, about their parents’ educational background and what kind of school they attended as part of the Legal Services Board’s push to improve transparency about diversity in the legal profession.

Law firms’ anti-risk measures are likely to be probed more thoroughly by insurers if the common professional indemnity insurance renewal date is abolished, according to a leading industry insider. He also revealed in detail a number of “creative accounting” techniques used by insurers to reduce their exposure to the assigned risks pool by declaring premiums that may be £60m less than actually received.