Embarrassing revelations about lawyers coming off the rails have caused the most damage to law firms’ reputations, more than a third of large commercial practices have said.

“Lawyer and staff misdemeanours” were cited by 34 per cent of law firms as having damaged their reputations in the last two years, a survey published today reveals.

According to senior communications staff at law firms, the issue of lawyers behaving badly was seen as an equal risk to reputation as cybersecurity threats. But the biggest threat to law firms’ reputations was their own clients. The researchers for Legal Business magazine and Byfield Consultancy found that 36 per cent of law firms cited the reputational issues of their own clients as their own top risk.

While recognising the importance of reputation – nearly 80 per cent of large firms claimed to have a clear strategy to deal with the issue – many seemed blasé about keeping up to date with the detail.

The survey found that 22 per cent of firms never reviewed their reputation-management strategy, while another 38 per cent reviewed their policies only annually. “Many law firms are playing catch-up when compared to their corporate cousins, where senior PRs often have a seat at the boardroom table,” said Gus Sellitto, Byfield’s managing director.

Britain’s biggest companies were involved in more than twice the amount of High Court litigation in the last 12 months compared to five years ago, research published today reveals.

There were 279 cases involving FTSE 100 businesses over the most recent period compared with 114 for the comparable time five years ago.

Researchers attributed the rise to the growing complexity of cross-border business and the increasing use of third-party litigation funding, which finances cases that in some instances litigants would otherwise not been able to afford. Funding is also viewed as a method of removing litigation costs from the balance sheets of defendant corporations.

Banks were in the front line of litigation, the research team from Thomson Reuters told the Financial Times. High Court law suits involving FTSE 100 banks rose by 14 per cent in the last 12 months.

A Russian billionaire who was ordered to pay his estranged wife £453 million has denounced the court ruling as unreasonable, unfounded and an outrageous abuse of the British legal system.

The man, who is an oil and gas magnate, claimed that his former wife, 44, had held the “courts to ransom”. He added that he had always taken care of her in spite of her infidelity.

The Times reported that he described last week’s award – made by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave at the High Court’s family division in London – as especially surprising because, he claims, they divorced in Russia more than 17 years ago after she admitted adultery.

The billionaire, who is 61, said that the award was unreasonable because he had given her a multimillion-pound home in Surrey and spent millions annually to keep her in a luxurious lifestyle with housekeepers, gardeners and chauffeurs. He was also ordered to hand over a collection of art valued at £87 million and an Aston Martin valued at £350,000. That, he said, was in contrast to the situation of women who faced a life in need after being abandoned by rich spouses.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave described the woman as a hands-on mother who had made an equal contribution to the marriage.

A courier company has admitted to incorrectly employing a rider as an independent contractor in a settlement heralded by union officials as the first significant victory over a gig economy business.

Ecourier, which is based in London, has settled a dispute with a former delivery rider, keeping the claim out of the employment tribunal.

Union leaders welcomed the settlement as “the first case of an employer in the gig economy admitting wrongdoing”. Jason Moyer-Lee, the general secretary of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, which represented Demille Flanore, the former rider, encouraged Ecourier to review its contracts generally.

“Given that these workers have been unlawfully deprived of their rights for years,” Moyer-Lee said, “we expect this to happen swiftly and will be monitoring their progress. We would also urge other employers in the so-called gig economy to follow suit.”

Another gig economy company, Deliveroo, was also reported to have removed a controversial clause from its contracts with their delivery riders. Lawyers said the clause had been intended to prevent Deliveroo riders from challenging their self-employed status at tribunals and required them to pay the company’s costs if they brought claims.

The president of the Law Society welcomed Deliveroo’s move to amend its contracts. “Attempting to block people from enforcing their rights through the employment tribunal is just plain wrong,” Robert Bourns said. “We're glad that Deliveroo has bowed to pressure and removed this clause, recognising that everyone must be free to seek justice through the courts when they feel they have been wronged.”

A Deliveroo spokesman said that the revised contract “makes clear that our riders are able to log in to work with us whenever they want – allowing them to fit their work around their life rather than their life around their work”.

General practice solicitors’ firms are a dying breed, the senior partners at small practices have admitted.

Traditional high street law firms are thought to be destined to lose out in an evolving market in which they will be increasingly overrun by alternative business structure-practices and niche specialist firms. The gloomy forecast for the village green or town high street all-rounder solicitors was made in a report from Lexis Nexis, the legal profession research business, which found that two thirds of traditional firms anticipated losing out to other business models.

Slightly more than half of the lawyers at the remaining high street legal practices said that “overall legal quality in the UK will decrease” as a result of structural shifts.

Nearly 80 per cent of the small firm respondents predicted that “non-legals” – business offering legal services but not owned by lawyers – “will compete directly with law firms”. Some 65 per cent predicted that smaller practices would have to become more “artisan” and “bespoke” to survive.

Old-school high street solicitors also worried about the quality of lawyers generally. About a third said that “good lawyers” were in a minority in the legal profession. “I’m afraid I’ve seen a decline in quality, certainly in the last five years, in small firms – particularly in intellect, ability to think and skill,” one respondent told the researchers.

Warnings that an Iraqi who alleged that British soldiers had tortured and murdered civilians was himself a violent insurgent were “nonsense”, the lawyer who brought the claims has told a disciplinary tribunal.

Martyn Day said yesterday that he had dismissed concerns that Khudur al-Sweady, a central figure in damages claims against the British Army, was a member of the Shia militia, Mahdi Army.

Day, who has stepped down from his position as senior partner of the London law firm Leigh Day, is facing misconduct charges for his handling of claims on behalf of Iraqis who were later shown to be Mahdi Army fighters.

The Times reported that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, sitting in London, heard that an email sent to Day by an intermediary, Mazin Younis, suggested that al-Sweady was threatening or blackmailing nine claimants who had alleged torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners.

Day, his law firm partner Sapna Malik and junior lawyer Anna Crowther face misconduct charges, including an allegation of destroying a key document. They deny all charges. The hearing continues.

Call to end divorce case secrecy – The Times

Law degree applications surge beyond all other courses – Legal Cheek

Website calls for delay in laws against lottery bets – The Times