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Three of the best-known innovative players in legal services have revealed ambitious plans for the future, building on strategies that have seen them develop rapidly in a fast-changing market. They were speaking at this week’s Legal Futures conference.

Thousands of law firms are set to contribute £1.4m to the Legal Ombudsman after the government confirmed that they will no longer be eligible for two ‘free’ complaints every year. Meanwhile, LeO has not ruled out entertaining complaints by third parties, such as against the opposing party’s lawyer.

Fewer than half of the current number of residential conveyancing specialist firms will be in business within three years and probably just one in ten, according to the entrepreneur who founded the UK’s most successful property website.

The end of the “crazy” requirement that law firms have to go through multiple notification processes to nominate the same people as compliance officers for affiliated entities is in sight as one of the first changes flowing from the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s ‘red tape challenge’.

Quality of legal advice and service still trump cost when clients choose a lawyer, although certainty about price and a firm’s use of technology are increasingly important, according to a major survey of client needs being released at today’s Legal Futures conference.

The Law Society is to investigate giving solicitors the choice of not having a client account as a way to reduce the cost of regulation, it has emerged. Chief executive Des Hudson said the “cost and burden of regulation will have to fall” to enable solicitors to compete.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson has responded to calls for all advocates – including solicitors – to be regulated by the Bar Standards Board by saying: “Are they having a laugh?” And SAHCA chief says QASA and ABSs give solicitor-advocates a “golden opportunity” to compete with barristers.

The Legal Education and Training Review may end up “unbalanced or worse” because it has incorrectly identified its purpose, the president of the Supreme Court warned last night. Lord Neuberger also questioned the need for root-and-branch change.

Simplify the Law – a law firm franchise concept which launched last year – has reinvented itself as an online legal service that aims to help commercial lawyers repel new competition in the market, Legal Futures can report.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority will next month launch its own version of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, chairman Charles Plant announced yesterday at the official opening of the authority’s new headquarters in Birmingham.