Market monitor

HM Land Registry has not met its target to reduce the number of requests for information that it has to send to law firms that have submitted incomplete or inaccurate information.

Almost two-thirds of divorce and separation clients now pay fixed fees, but less than half of them end up paying the price quoted at the start, a report has found.

Investors have still to understand the legal market fully, according to the chief executive of listed law firm Keystone, which suffered market contagion last month because of problems at a litigation funder.

The Labour Party has pledged to spend £74m to provide free legal training for 200 community lawyers, establish more law centres, and reverse all the cuts to legal aid-funded Early Legal Help.

Lower-cost in-house legal departments spend three times more on alternative legal services providers and twice as much on training, research has found.

A leading insurance law firm has outlined worries that the Civil Liability Act reforms will not be implemented in April 2020 as currently planned.

A virtual firm alternative business structure aimed at top-end solicitors approaching retirement is white labelling entities to groups of lawyers or overseas practices looking to start up under their own brand.

NAHL plc – the company that owns National Accident Helpline – has unveiled its third, and probably last, joint venture alternative business structure as it prepares for next year’s personal injury reforms.

The future of BT Law is under scrutiny as the communications giant that owns the alternative business structure moves to focus more on its core business, Legal Futures can reveal.

City firm Rosenblatt has made its first acquisition as a listed business – and begun diversifying away from legal services – by spending up to £22m on a specialist sell-side corporate finance boutique.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service has made “good progress” in transforming some services, but there are still “significant challenges” ahead for the court modernisation programme, the NAO said today.

An acquisition that cost more than anticipated and caused overstaffing was a primary cause of the difficulties that led to a law firm being bought by consolidator AWH Legal, it has emerged.

One of the most outspoken backbench supporters of the government’s personal injury reforms has been given a role at the Ministry of Justice that includes advancing the agenda.

Anexo Group, the listed credit hire and legal services business, is looking to expand beyond road traffic accidents and the North-West and said the demise of other claimant law firms was “great” news.

There is a “fundamental disconnect” among solicitors between the skills they think they need and the ones they actually need, new research has suggested.