Legal Services Act

The Legal Services Board gives the impression that it values innovation and market development above all things, including “the necessary protective role of regulation” when it goes wrong, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has said.

Co-operative Legal Services returned to profit last year, although turnover continued to fall, its annual results have revealed. Though turnover – which reached a high of £33m in 2012 – was down a further 14% to £18m, CLS turned a £5m loss into a £700,000 profit.

Real benefits are emerging from alternative business structures and the US should be open-minded about adopting them, according to an academic study. It found that while ABSs did not amount to a transformation of the industry, their effects on the firms in England and Wales that adopted the business model were positive.

Essex Legal Services has become just the fourth local authority legal department to become an alternative business structure. The legal department of Essex County Council predicted that it could make an additional surplus of £1.8m by 2020 through a “growth strategy” with creation of the ABS as “one of the key enablers”.

There is a serious lack of transparency over the pricing of common legal services, major new research has found – with those providers who do publish their rates and also the ones who offer fixed fees generally cheaper than law firms that do not.

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.

Greater prescription of how client-care letters are framed could follow a Legal Services Board report yesterday that said “inaccessible language” used by lawyers prevents consumers from accessing legal services. It said other sectors have developed guides, logos and customer information which made buying services less daunting.

The Bar Standards Board has received the green light to license alternative business structures. The approval from the Legal Services Board needs to be confirmed by the Ministry of Justice. The BSB’s initial focus will be on “low-risk, advocacy focused ABSs”.

This is a “considerable failure” of the legal services market to meet the needs of small businesses, a major lobbying group has told the Competition and Markets Authority. The Federation of Small Business said the barriers small businesses face in resolving legal problems were “numerous”.

The High Court has strongly criticised the Legal Ombudsman as it quashed a decision sanctioning a barrister for pursuing court action against a direct access client for fees – when the client had not complained about it. It also expressed surprise at “the vehemence of the language used by the LO” in its finding.