Knowles Benning: Shut by SRA today
Photo: Google Maps
Two more firms in the Metamorph Law group – including the one to which the caseloads of several others were being transferred – were shut down today.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) announced that it has intervened in Bedfordshire firm Knowles Benning and Eastleigh practice Knight Polson.
The regulator said: “As with the previous interventions, these have been necessary to protect the interests of clients and former clients of those firms.”
It leaves just three law firms in the group still open for business: Parrott & Coales in Aylesbury, Browns Solicitors in Buckinghamshire, and Southampton-based Beeston Edwards.
Last week, the SRA intervened in MLL Ltd and Beaumont ABS – both of which have been made subject to winding-up orders in recent weeks – as well as BPL Solicitors and Atray Ltd.
MLL traded through Terry Jones Solicitors, Linder Myers, Donnelley & Elliot, SLC Solicitors, Verisona Law, Beaumont Solicitors and RJW Legal.
Before Beaumont ABS, was shut down, its caseload had been transferred to Knowles Benning, while the firms forming part of MLL and BPL were completing a “managed wind down”, with their client work being transferred to Knowles Benning, operating as the successor practice, according to their websites last week.
Whether those transfers were successful before the intervention now appears a moot point, although the footer of several of the firms’ websites refers to them as “Knowles Benning trading as”.
We reported earlier today that Knowles Benning had previously been linked to Kingly Solicitors, another law firm consolidator that the SRA shut down in 2020.
The advice to clients still on the Linder Myers’ website, replicated on some of the others, tells clients that Knowles Benning “would be pleased to accept your instructions to act on your behalf. Your dedicated case handler may also have moved to Knowles Benning”.
