Practice Management

Video hearings in certain criminal cases are more likely to lead to defendants receiving a prison sentence, a major study has found. It also highlighted the difficulties they cause defence advocates.

Many of the country’s largest law firms are unprepared for the rate at which they are burning through cash during the Covid-19 pandemic, a review of their accounts has revealed.

A man who claimed to have registered the domain name ‘sidleylawyers.co.uk’ on behalf of a friend called Sidley who was about to qualify has been ordered to hand it over to US giant Sidley Austin.

A company that trains foreign lawyers to qualify as solicitors has successfully complained about a competitor that claimed to be the number one provider.

Legal project management has received an unexpected boost from people working from home as a result of Covid-19 but law firms are keen on formal standards for it, according to a study.

Trainee solicitors will be able to qualify without first completing the professional skills course because of the Covid-19 outbreak, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has called on the government to take action to reduce the risk of disabled people being wrongly convicted because of video hearings in criminal cases.

It is not appropriate for a 15-day hearing into whether a mother has harmed her seven-year-old daughter to be held remotely, the president of the Family Court has ruled.

Legal tech continues to attract investment, with money for a new wills app and the more established The Link App, but it must be able to benefit from a new coronavirus support package for tech companies.

Government schemes to help SME companies grow by offering investors tax relief exclude legal businesses and so constrict technological innovation in the market, it has been claimed.

The Legal Ombudsman is exploring whether to use big data and machine learning technology to suggest outcomes  and make recommendations in resolving complaints about lawyers.

One in seven female solicitors have experienced bullying, discrimination and harassment in the workplace over the past year, while there is also a large gender pay gap, Law Society research has revealed.

A conveyancing assistant dismissed by a law firm for turning up late on each of her first three days was not a victim of sex discrimination, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Many of the technologies and techniques that have been “forged in the heat” of the coronavirus crisis will usurp old ways of practising when life returns to normal, Professor Richard Susskind has predicted.

A Liverpool law firm has defeated the claim of a finance broker who sought a £100,000 fee for introducing it to a new loan provider, even though it eventually secured £2m in funding.