Legal Services Act

A regional firm of accountants is planning to become an alternative business structure (ABS). Becoming an ABS will allow Spofforths to improve the private client service currently provided by an in-house legal team and in time become a legal brand in its local market.

QCs should lose their title if they fall below an acceptable standard, the Legal Services Consumer Panel suggested today in a report that calls on legal bodies that run voluntary quality schemes to improve checks on lawyers’ continuing competence so as to boost consumer confidence.

Lawyers complaining about the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill have not considered the impact of ABSs in changing the way the legal profession works, justice minister Lord McNally said yesterday. However, the second reading of the bill raised the possibility of a concession over removing clinical negligence from legal aid and of further regulation of third-party funding.

HighStreetLawyer.com (HSL) has added five new firms to its nascent national legal network after its successful pilot phase, Legal Futures can reveal. HSL is also relaunching its website today as part of the ambition of founder Gary Yantin to reach 100 branches by the end of 2012.

The first law firm launched in direct response to the government’s decision to ban referral fees in personal injury cases is set to go live. Acorn Law is pledging not to pay referral fees or charge them to other suppliers.

The final legislative obstacle to the Solicitors Regulation Authority licensing alternative business structures was removed on Tuesday when the House of Lords approved secondary legislation on non-lawyer owners’ disclosure of criminal convictions and appeals against ABS licensing decisions.

A solicitor has for the first time been fined by the High Court for failing to co-operate with an investigation by the Legal Ombudsman. The High Court used the case to stress that such failures could also lead to immediate imprisonment.

Profit margins among all but the elite of the top 100 law firms have dropped significantly over the past five years, new research has revealed, with the introduction of alternative business structures set to pressure them even more.

The Legal Ombudsman should press to extend its jurisdiction to complaints about non-lawyer will-writers and the not-for-profit sector, while the government needs to review its inadequate powers over complaints against CMCs, a study has recommended.

AIM-listed In-Deed has today become the first business to announce its explicit intention to invest in law firms. The company is looking for approaches from “successful and profitable provincial legal practices” to help make In-Deed a leading consumer legal brand.