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25 February 2011 / Dr Jon Robins
Issue: 7454 / Categories: Opinion , Legal services , Profession
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An unfair divide

Is the ban on law firms hiving off unreserved legal work through associated entities the regulatory breach in the profession’s defences that will enable those new entrants to storm a newly liberalised legal services market?

Part 3: Jon Robins confronts an uncomfortable reality for lawyers

Is the profession’s failure to address the separate business rule “the equivalent of the Maginot line”, ponders Neil Kinsella, the senior executive of one of the largest claimant firms Russell Jones & Walker. Or, to put it another way, is the ban on law firms hiving off unreserved legal work through associated entities the regulatory breach in the profession’s defences that will enable those new entrants to storm a newly liberalised legal services market?

Radical change

This is the third and final article in a series exploring the consequences for a profession going through rapid and radical change where some 80% of its work falls outside the protection of “reserved” legal work (see 160 NLJ 7444, p 1662 & NLJ, 7 January 2011, p 7). Most practitioners

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Bell Yard Kysen—Liz Giles

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Clarke Willmott—Lee Edwards

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Lime Solicitors—four promotions

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Lime Solicitors announces four promotions

NEWS
The Attorney General, Ellie Reeves KC MP, and Solicitor General, Andy Slaughter KC MP, marked the 25th anniversary of Pro Bono Week by joining lawyers, charities, students and parliamentarians at events celebrating voluntary legal work
Should a conviction stand when a later ruling reveals that the law underpinning it was wrong? The answer exposes a clash between finality and justice
A polished legal defence may owe more to artificial intelligence than legal merit—and creditors risk paying the price in delay and expense
Witness evidence can be compromised by AI before a solicitor sees the draft, leaving safeguards focused on authorship incomplete
Possession claims are entering a new digital era, with procedural traps awaiting practitioners who assume familiar rules still govern every step
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