Market monitor

The Civil Liability Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons yesterday, with MPs voting by 294 to 238 to approve its third reading amid “enormous respect” for PI lawyers.

Brexit will not create opportunities for law firms to expand into new markets abroad and instead could make it harder, MPs on the justice select committee have been warned.

The Civil Liability Bill seriously undermines the oath sworn by Lord Chancellor David Gauke to defend the independence of the judiciary, claimant lawyers have argued.

A ‘no deal’ Brexit would be “devastating” to the legal services sector, “and should be avoided at all costs”, MPs have told the government, saying UK lawyers need to practise easily across the EU.

Law firms big and small are increasingly viewing AI software and particularly the exploitation of data as integral to business health amid growing competition from non-lawyer providers.

The man charged with delivering the whiplash portal said yesterday that he expects to meet the timetable of putting it out for testing next autumn and launch in April 2020.

More people than ever are prepared to have their personal injury claim handled completely online, according to research by a leading law firm as it prepares to become ‘small claims ready’.

The 1 October indemnity insurance renewal date still used by most law firms was marked by the usual rush of mergers and acquisitions, with listed law firm Knights leading the way.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has won a £700,000 award from the government to accelerate the ideas of law firms and others to improve access to justice using AI.

If there is one thing a law firm can do to achieve buy-in from lawyers sceptical of the need for change, it is show clients saying they have rewarded an innovative approach, the author of a major book has said.

Private-equity backed industrial disease law firm Roberts Jackson has become the latest victim of the squeeze on personal injury practices, and was sold out of administration on Friday.

Gordon Dadds Group is in talks with top-50 City firm Ince & Co to create what would be the largest listed law firm. It is a significantly bigger deal than Gordon Dadds has been targeting.

The first set to be named after a woman in the history of the Bar is to honour one of the first two female King’s Counsel, as they then were, it has emerged.

The government is indirectly “dismantling” legal aid, and putting access to justice under threat, by setting unsustainably low fee levels for lawyers, a Supreme Court justice has argued.

One of the country’s leading personal injury sets is planning to offer litigants in person a new way to obtain legal advice once the government increases the small claims limit.