Legal Services Act

A new local authority alternative business structure is targeting the health sector as one of its main growth areas. Its head said that with “no traditional partnership structure or expensive offices, our fees are very, very competitive compared with specialist private sector law firms”.

Institutional investors have snapped up new shares in Slater & Gordon to fund its purchase of Quindell’s professional services division, it announced overnight. Around 70% of the £637m initial purchase price – £456m – is being funded through new shares, with the rest through bank debt.

Insurance law firm BLM has joined forces with Cunningham Lindsey, one of the largest loss adjusting and claims management companies in the world, to launch an offering that combines loss adjusting, claims handling and litigation.

A personal injury claims mediation business, an American law firm and one of the largest local authority shared legal services in the country are among the latest alternative business structures to be licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A report for the Bar Council on the future of criminal justice and advocacy has recommended that legal executives are kept out of the Crown Courts, while solicitors should only be granted rights of audience if they have undergone the same level of training as barristers.

Slater & Gordon has entered into an agreement to acquire Quindell plc’s professional services division in return for upfront consideration of £637m, with an estimated £40m to follow from a 50% earn-out from existing noise-induced hearing loss cases.

The University of Law has become the first academic institution to be granted an alternative business structure licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. ULaw said the licence will allow it to expand its legal advice clinic at the Bloomsbury branch in London.

The Simplify Group – the legal services group that owns QualitySolicitors – has added online business Evident Legal to its portfolio. Evident began life in 2011 as a law firm franchise called Simplify the Law, before reinventing itself in late 2012 as an online document business.

The Legal Services Board has emphatically rejected calls to join the protests against legal aid cuts, and suggested instead that the profession needs to work harder to provide access to legal services.

More than 80% of barristers have declined to disclose information about their socio-economic backgrounds when asked to do so by their professional regulator, it has emerged.