Alternative business structures

Two new alternative business structures are set for approval next week, as the Leeds-based Progeny Group comes into life. The group will combine a commercial law and private client ABS with a separate, FCA-regulated wealth management business.

West Midlands firm Talbots – a stalwart of the QualitySolicitors network – has announced that it is leaving the group in May. Chief executive Mary Mocklow said Talbots would compete better as an independent law firm.

Slater & Gordon failed to carry out good enough due diligence checks before buying Quindell’s professional services division this time last year, a partner at the UK’s first listed law firm has suggested. Andrew Evans, partner at Gateley, said S&G paid “far too much”.

Fairpoint Group plc – the one-time debt management operation that has transformed into a mainly legal services operation – has reported a “strong financial performance” for 2015 and plans to keep growing in 2016. Meanwhile, turnover at Minster Law, which is owned by BGL Group, more than halved.

A property management firm specialising in residential blocks of flats has turned itself into an alternative business structure, in what is understood to be first move of its kind. “At the moment we’re a property management company with a legal capacity. In 10 years’ time, it is likely to be the other way round,” said director Matthew Young.

In the event a large firm collapses, the Solicitors Regulation Authority expects the market to “gobble” up the pieces rather than leave it to the regulator to sort out, it has emerged. Chief executive Paul Philip said the question of whether the regulator could cope with a large firm going down had been discussed internally.

The law firm owned by global insurance giant Markel relaunched this week with a product that unbundles legal advice for small and medium-sized businesses. LHS Solicitors offers a £50 ‘quick review’ service that allows clients to post relevant documents online, if necessary, and then receive an advice call within two hours.

One Legal’s acquisition of Kaim Todner sets the foundation for further deals on the back of “significant investment” it has received to expand, the alternative business structure’s founder has said. Trevor Howarth, who shot to prominence as the boss of now-defunct Stobart Barristers, also did not resile from his controversial description of criminal legal aid firms as “very wounded animals ready to die”.

South west law firm Stephens Scown is to become a pioneering alternative business structure at the end of his month, which will allow it to remain a partnership while introducing employee ownership. Managing partner Robert Camp he hoped it would provide a “way forward” for other law firms.

An alternative business structure to be launched by the Royal College of Nursing and Cardiff-based NewLaw next month is to limit its offering to personal injury, it has emerged, making it a markedly different offering from that set up last year by the British Medical Association.