Publicly listed firm Gordon Dadds is in merger talks with Ince & Co, which if successful will create a major new international law firm.

As reported by Alex Aldridge in the Guardian and Neil Rose in Legal Futures, Yorkshire law firm Gordons has launched a legal apprenticeship that will allow school leavers to become qualified lawyers without first having to do a degree.

The justice secretary Michael Gove has abandoned a controversial new bidding scheme for legal aid contracts and suspended a further 8.75% fee cut for duty criminal solicitors who represent people suspected of crimes in police stations and magistrates courts.

The justice secretary, Michael Gove, has said that rich lawyers and firms should do more to make justice available for all following the removal of access to justice for most of the public by his government’s legal aid cuts.

The UK government has announced a £24 million injection of cash into police station and youth court fees, marking the “start of the government’s work to support the sustainability of the justice system both now and in future”.

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education have jointly announced that the apprenticeship standards for the Trailblazers in Law initiative have been approved.

Following discussions between CILEx and the Ministry of Justice, it has been announced that chartered legal executives can now become coroners.

The Ministry of Justice has been allocated an extra £30 million, not to address the legal aid crisis, but to prepare for the possibility of a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

The government has set out the expected consequences of a no-deal Brexit on the legal profession, as well as the wider economy in a report published on Tuesday.

The Government Legal Department (GLD) has warned that its lawyers face serious capacity challenges as they work on Brexit, which will be additional to the full range of legal services that they already provide in all areas of government.

What next for seafarers? 

Crime solicitors have lost their appeal against the government's plans to cut the number of duty solicitors' contracts by two thirds – a decision which the Law Society has said could lead to vulnerable people being denied access to justice.

Communities secretary Sajid Javid has promised new legislation to outlaw unfair and abusive practices within the leasehold system, including a ban on leaseholds for almost all new-build houses. 

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that it still intends to stop allowing soldiers injured while serving in the armed forces to pursue complaints through the courts, following speculation that the plans may have been dropped over the summer. 

The government has rejected the Legal Service Board's recommendation that the interests of the public would be best served by making will writing subject to regulation

The government has rejected calls from lawyers and firms to lower employment tribunal fees, which have caused a huge drop in the number of employment tribunal cases being brought since their introduction in 2013. 

The government’s plans for how an extra £15 million into the criminal justice system will be spent have been revealed, with critics claiming that junior barristers stand to lose out to their senior colleagues.