Staffordshire legal practice Hacking Ashton LLP, which was one of the first 100 firms to register as an alternative business structure, recently closed its doors in the first high-profile demise of any SRA-regulated firm operating under the new business model. The first failure of an ABS may cause those currently seeking a licence to ask whether it remains commercially viable. The novelty value of an ABS ought not to disguise the fact that any structure must be based on a sound and viable business model, yet the failure of Hacking Ashton leaves us asking if liberalisation will be the panacea to the current ills of the industry or simply a damaging distraction.

There are around 10,000 firms of solicitors in England and Wales, generating over £25bn in revenues annually. Some 85% are small high street firms with an average turnover of £1m. There are some very big players (the top 200 account for 62% of those revenues) and also some that are very small. Until recently, failures were almost unheard of. However, financial reality is perhaps starting to take hold.

Helen Grant became parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice on 3 September 2012. Replacing Jonathan Djanogly, she immediately became ‘my’ minister, in that she has responsibility for the areas of greatest interest to me – legal services and civil litigation For all the faults people saw in Mr Djanogly, I found him accessible and prepared to put his head above the parapet. Ms Grant is proving the opposite.

I’ve spent the last two days at the QualitySolicitors conference in Manchester. I was invited to chair the opening session of the event and stayed to listen to the rest. Having done this and had the chance to speak to the chiefs of several QS firms, it may come as a disappointment to the QS knockers out there (and there is no shortage of them) that I sensed the network is heading into a positive new phase.

Part of my holiday reading involved revisiting some of the leading texts on quality service – how to understand it, achieve it and measure it. Oddly enough, there wasn’t much that emanated from the UK legal market. What does ‘the customer journey’ mean to your average lawyer? I’d like to think that most, if pressed, wouldn’t simply say that it’s how the client manages to get to his office for a meeting. But I suspect that very few have more than a passing acquaintance with the concepts and practices that have been proven to succeed in a service environment.