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Leading insurance law firm Horwich Farrelly has become an alternative business structure in preparation for April’s civil justice reforms, and is planning to add non-legal claims services to its offering. The Manchester-based practice has more than 400 staff.

Many small and medium-sized law practices expect alternative business structures to affect them directly, with a third saying they could merge with another firm and one in five likely to seek external funding and/or bring in non-lawyer owners, a survey has found.

More than 450 firms have started the alternative business structure application process over the past year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed. Having started accepting applications on 3 January 2012, the SRA said that 454 firms have since started the process.

The Legal Ombudsman has won approval for changes to its rules that bring them more in line with the Financial Ombudsman Service and so equip it better to deal with alternative business structures like Co-operative Legal Services.

Completion of the much-anticipated Legal Education and Training Review has been delayed, it has emerged. The academic team compiling the report after 18 months of research and consultation was meant to have delivered it by the end of 2012.

There is not much of a future for small law firms in the face of competition from banks and retailers, while medium-sized practice will need to merge and seek external investment to survive and thrive, leading legal ‘futurologist’ Professor Richard Susskind has predicted.

Law firms should introduce targets to increase the representation of women lawyers in partnership and senior roles, and turn talk of flexible working into reality, a major new report has recommended, with the Law Society president saying that if career progression was based on pure merit, some senior partners would have got nowhere near the top.

The cost of acquiring personal injury cases, irrespective of the referral fee ban, is around £700 – £200 more than the government is proposing for routine road traffic claims even before the legal work is factored in, according to new research.

Ten chambers have signed up to the pilot of Barco, the Bar Council’s third-party escrow account that will allow barristers to handle client money. It follows the Financial Services Authority granting regulatory approval for the service under the Payment Services Regulations.

Controversial rule changes that scrap the minimum salary for trainee solicitors and allow solicitors to refer clients to tied financial advisers were approved last month by the Legal Services Board. In both cases the LSB found that there was no reason to refuse the applications.