Market monitor

An entrepreneur who successfully lobbied for changes in how the Foreign Office handles missing people has launched a new campaign to support litigants in person.

A litigation-focused legal and accountancy alternative business structure, which opened for business this month, is set to benefit from an “explosion” in contested probate cases.

Law firms of the future need to offer clients a “holistic service” beyond just legal advice, according to the boss of a law firm bought by a multi-disciplinary European network last week.

The founder of pioneering alternative business structure rradar has described innovation in the legal sector as “sweat, risk and stubbornness”. It is now lining up acquisitions to aid growth.

Manchester law firm Glaisyers is set to become a multi-disciplinary practice for SME clients after being acquired by a consortium led by an international network of professional service firms.

The Law Society is undergoing its latest internal reorganisation, with the aim of creating “the Future Law Society” by 2022. It also wants solicitors to focus on work that cannot be automated.

Private equity-owned national firm Simpson Millar has increased its staff to over 500 and extended its reach in the North-West with the acquisition of a Lancaster-based general practice.

Hodge Jones & Allen has become the first law firm to be entirely owned by its employees like retailer John Lewis after its equity partners agreed to sell the business to an employee ownership trust.

Sir Nigel Knowles has warned the top commercial law firms that the big four accountants are “a force that no law firm can match” in their ability to invest in capital projects.

A dispute with its former after-the-event insurer was the key factor in private equity-backed Roberts Jackson becoming insolvent and being sold in a pre-pack, it has emerged.