Viv Williams, CEO of Legal Futures Associate 360 Legal Group, says law firms have to decide now how their practices will survive – and in what form – in response to the Legal Services Act and alternative business structures. Law firms’ options are limited; consolidation is inevitable and a strategy for survival could be to grow by acquisition or merger. But there are alternatives.

Reaction to the Legal Services Board’s decision document last week on referral fees has been predictable. The Law Society and Bar Council were deeply unhappy, as was the Association of British Insurers (not an organisation with which Chancery Lane often makes common cause).

One benefit, such as it is, of being a self-confessed legal regulation nerd is that I was invited to attend a Legal Services Board/Legal Services Institute discussion on reserved legal activities the other week. It wasn’t entirely clear whether I was there as a journalist or simply as someone who has shown more interest in the topic than is strictly healthy. The event was part of the early stages of the LSB’s major project to rationalise the scope of regulation.

Put six lawyers in a room and you may well get nine different points of view on referral fees. But could the end be nigh for this fierce debate, which has split the profession asunder for many years? As the Legal Services Board recognised in its decision last week – and secretly probably hopes – the advent of alternative business structures could render the issue irrelevant.

Alarm bells are ringing in the financial services sector after a finding by the Financial Services Authority against an individual with compliance oversight responsibilities in a brokerage firm. If the Solicitors Regulation Authority, under its new enforcement powers, takes a similar approach, compliance officers for legal practice (COLPs) and for finance and administration (COFAs) had better beware.