Legal Services Act

A shared office space in London that aims to give barristers around the country a physical presence in the capital on a pay-as-you-go basis will open shortly, Legal Futures can reveal. The venture, Barrister Hub, is a joint venture between Clerksroom and barrister-focused recruitment and consultancy business Chambers People.

A fast-growing personal pension provider has set up an alternative business structure (ABS) to provide legal services for its portfolio of more than 6,000 commercial properties. Gemma Millard, director of Rivergate Legal, said Curtis Banks had added the ABS to its panel of law firms but “ultimately” the new business could work for anybody.

A Cheshire claims management company (CMC) is training law firms on how to handle mortgage mis-selling claims, it has emerged. The ME Group, set up by non-lawyer managers from Liverpool law firm High Street Solicitors, opened for business in September last year with only five staff. It has already expanded to 110.

A website offering free legal advice to injured cyclists has been launched with the aim of removing the need for solicitors and saving victims “an average of £800”. It offers a possible vision of the future if the small claims limit goes up as intended by the government.

US-based medical reports giant ExamWorks – which owns leading UK provider Premex – has bought a personal injury firm as part of its acquisition of leading accident management group Kindertons. Jigsaw Law was originally a claims management company but was granted an alternative business structure licence in late 2012.

Listed law firm Gateley has made its biggest acquisition to date, and first of a law firm, with a £4.15m deal to buy Surrey property firm GCL Solicitors, while also announcing an 8% increase in turnover over the past year. The deal brings in 79 new members of staff, including six partners.

The legal market is “totally fragmented, under-capitalised, technologically semi-illiterate and structurally redundant”, a former justice minister has claimed, arguing that a smaller number of big firms is the answer to the problems with criminal legal aid.

The market capitalisation of Rosenblatt, which last week became the fourth law firm to go public, has already risen by £10m on the back of a strong start to trading. Its chief executive is planning a regional acquisition to provide a lower-cost offering for corporate transactions and to create a standalone litigation funding business.

The Association of British Insurers has hit back angrily at yesterday’s justice select committee report criticising the government’s plan to raise the small claims limit, saying that it “read like a shopping list of asks from the claimant lawyers”. Claimant lawyers, by contrast, have called on the Ministry of Justice to adopt the committee’s recommendations.

The small claims limit for personal injury should rise by inflation to £1,500, rather than the higher levels proposed by the government, MPs on the justice select committee have recommended. In a major boost to claimant lawyers, the committee found little credibility in much of the government’s case for raising the limit.