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By Julian Bryan, Managing Director, Quill

Showing clear signs of recovery in the sector, legal activity in September bounced back to an average of 19% more than pre-Covid levels, according to the legal matters benchmarking tool, Quilldex.

At its lowest point, Quilldex reported overall cases dipped by 36% in April 2020, but this has now rebounded to 19% in September 2020, buoyed by family law (25%), private client law (36%), conveyancing (49%) and employment law (49%). Let’s take a deeper look into these areas of rebound.

Read moreCovid-19’s impact: Practice areas by work type

Legal mental health charity LawCare has announced a new ground-breaking research study ‘Life in the Law’ ahead of World Mental Health Day on 10th October.

Read moreLAWCARE LAUNCHES GROUND-BREAKING RESEARCH STUDY ‘LIFE IN THE LAW’

Geodesys offers free of charge SDLT service as the market bounces back

As the property market resumes following the gradual lifting of lockdown measures, figures from HM Revenue and Customs have shown that property sales rose by and incredible 15.6% in August accompanied by a significant increase in house prices⁽¹⁾.

Although experts are predicting that the boom is not sustainable, current sales are also being boosted by the Stamp Duty holiday introduced by the Chancellor in July.  This sees the stamp duty threshold increased to £500,000 until the end of March 2021.  Although first time buyers were already exempt from SDLT on property purchases up to £300,000, the recent additional reduction of SDLT, has been designed to stimulate the overall market and is certainly playing a role in supporting house sales.

Read moreGeodesys offers free of charge SDLT service

Today’s conveyancing market is experiencing unprecedented times. Lockdown, Brexit, seasonal holidays and the current cut in stamp duty are factors having a major impact, both positively and negatively, on the profession.

Following the catastrophic stall in house sales caused by the pandemic, the last couple of months have been amongst the busiest for ten years.

Read moreIs the Stamp Duty holiday leading to a “gold rush” for conveyancers?

By Julian Bryan, Managing Director, Quill

The COVID-19 lockdown has forced all of us to be more reliant on technology and embrace working from home. But many legacy IT infrastructures are ill-suited or too outdated to handle all the demands of remote working. Cloud-based software is the solution, but where to start?

Read on for four important considerations before making the software switch:

Read moreSoftware swap guide: four tips to protecting your data

“The global pandemic has seen UK charities face critical funding shortfalls, making gifts in Wills all the more important for the sector’s recovery.” 

Read moreREMEMBER A CHARITY WEEK LAUNCHES AS APPETITE FOR WILL-WRITING RISES IN PANDEMIC YEAR

New instructions surge past pre-lockdown levels

Legal activity has bounced back to 130% of pre-Covid levels, according to the latest update from Quilldex. Quill’s free analytics tool that tracks trends across the sector. It is the clearest sign yet of the buoyancy of the market since the UK emerged from lockdown.

The all-cases index shows that new instructions dipped to around 50% of January averages during April and May—but then rebounded to well above that benchmark across most areas of law in July. The data should give law firms confidence for their planning and investment over the rest of 2020 and beyond.

Read morePress release from: Quill

23^rd July 2020

LEAP and Yourkeys break the mould and deliver homebuilders a faster and more transparent conveyancing service

Legal practice management system provider LEAP announces a new technology partnership whereby conveyancers using LEAP software provide their services to property builders via the Yourkeys digital platform. Yourkeys helps to speed up the conveyancing process for home builders by effectively tracking sales and qualifying and onboarding buyers.

By supporting Yourkeys’ objectives of delivering greater transparency, consistency and cost-savings to home builders, the partnership with LEAP provides the home buyer access to an experienced collective of 140 accredited conveyancing firms which provide a gold standard service, efficiency through consistency of process, and improved output by fee earner and by firm thanks to the adoption of technology.

Read morePress Release