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Alternative business structures may be bad for traditional law firms, but they will have a positive impact on clients, a snapshot survey of small firms has found. This is despite the belief that new entrants will not provide the same quality or ethical standards as traditional practices.

A litigation boutique which specialises in complex banking and financial cases is sharing its first year profits with all staff. City firm Signature Litigation set up in 2012 with an innovative profit-sharing scheme promising “transparency” on the firm’s financials from the outset.

Well-known legal expenses insurer ULR Additions has won approval to set up an alternative business structure. However, the license from the Solicitors Regulation Authority restricts the work LEI Legal Services Ltd can undertake.

The Legal Services Board fears a successful legal challenge should it accept the compromise aimed at resolving the impasse over moving the handling of complaints about claims management companies to the Legal Ombudsman, Legal Futures has learned.

The future of the cab-rank rule is still up for debate despite approval of the new Bar Standards Board code of conduct, which includes it, the Legal Services Board has warned. The BSB is also set to raise the issue of a cab-rank rule for solicitors, it has emerged.

The Legal Ombudsman has put around 10% of its staff at risk of redundancy as it undertakes a restructuring brought about by receiving fewer complaints than expected. It has been exacerbated by difficulties in transferring over the handling of complaints about CMCs.

Barristers will be allowed to conduct litigation and form associations with non-barristers after the Legal Services Board approved the new Bar Standards Board code of conduct. The revolution will begin in January 2014.

A new ‘find a lawyer’ service just launched in America has designs on coming to the UK next year, Legal Futures can reveal. The long-term goal of LawVisors is to be a “legal ecosystem” for lawyers and clients alike.

Charles Plant, chairman of the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, has been re-appointed for a further year, it was announced yesterday. His term of office will now expire on 31 December 2014, when he will have led the board for five years.

There is a “disappointing and inexplicable” widening of the gap between the views of barristers and complainants when dealing with the Bar Standards Board complaints procedures. The barristers’ regulator has gone backwards in the public’s perception.