It is no great secret that the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) sees its role in enforcing the government’s ban on referral fees in personal injury as a hospital pass. It would much rather that paying or receiving a referral fee be made a criminal offence and taken out of its hands. After all, the SRA (in its previous guise as part of the Law Society) has been down this road before and it wasn’t a happy experience.

As a new tech boom gets underway in Silicon Valley, all eyes have been on Mark Zuckerburg’s Facebook, whose initial public offering valued the social network at float at a staggering $104bn. Elsewhere, another California-based company is seeking to raise $120m, an enterprise which has taken the US legal world by storm and has been heralded by commentators as “poised to partake in one of the most significant disruptions American business has ever seen”. That company is LegalZoom, the leading provider of online legal services to consumers and small businesses in the US, and it is coming to the UK this year.

Alternative business structure, ABS. It is hardly a snappy name. It means nothing to the general public. It doesn’t mean much more to the business community. But, for private equity firms, it’s a chink of light – a way in to a £25bn market. So, is this a gold rush? Are we likely to see high levels of PE activity? Nick West, director of legal markets at Legal Futures Associate LexisNexis considers the possibilities.

The last week has seen both a victory and a defeat for lawyer lobbying, and perhaps the most fearsome legal lobbying machine – the Bar – crank into action. The victory came in the surprise climbdown by HSBC over its restricted conveyancing panel. A global banking giant felled by a campaign spearheaded by the Law Society but with strong support from the likes of the Bold Group. It was pursued at a national level, with coverage in several national newspapers, and also at a local level, with solicitors talking to their estate agent contacts.

If ever there was a “what the…?” moment since setting up Legal Futures, it was the news that the Stobart Group is entering the legal services market. The story launched many an attempt at humour on Twitter, but I will gladly put them to one side. One can see some challenges for this venture, not least that while Eddie Stobart is a well-known brand, especially among motorway travellers, it is not known for delivering any services, let alone professional ones, to consumers.