Thomas: Small firms will still be in demand
An expanding West Midlands law firm, acquired this time last year by a private equity house, is to expand its referral service for smaller firms across the country.
Blake Thomas, business development director at FBC Manby Bowdler, said he believed Hub.Legal was unique, partly because member firms both referred work and received referrals.
FBC was bought in November 2024 [1] by private equity firm Horizon Capital and became the founding member of the Adeptio Law Group. Neil Lloyd, chief executive of FBC, said the following month that the group aimed to double in size in a year.
FBC, which has 35 partners and over 200 staff, launched Hub.Legal in 2014. It allows smaller firms, particularly those with two to 15 partners, to refer work to it, where smaller firms lack the expertise to advise clients.
Mr Thomas said Hub.Legal worked both ways because FBC also referred work to member firms, where they were in a better position to do it – other networks of this nature generally only see referrals go one way.
He said that over the last five years, legal work worth £3.1m had been referred to FBC through Hub.Legal, which had paid around £300,000 in referral fees.
This was made up of over 1,200 matters, which converted to around 400 cases for FBC. In return FBC referred almost 1,000 matters to member firms.
Mr Thomas said there were around 70 West Midland law firms in the Hub.Legal network, which is looking to expand in stages, beginning with the East Midlands over the next few weeks and then to the North by the end of the year.
This would be followed by London and the South next year. The aim would be to expand the network at a rate of five law firms a month.
Mr Thomas said FBC would take a “co-ordinated approach” to expansion of the network and the firm itself.
Hub.Legal is free for law firms to join and provides a ‘non-poach’ assurance so that FBC cannot act in further matters without the referring law firm’s approval.
Mr Thomas said other referral networks did not work in quite the same way. Hub.Legal’s “enhanced offering” also includes free or discounted training, and a ‘colleague up the corridor’ scheme – allowing members to access FBC’s experts for a second opinion on a case, including on any anti-money laundering or regulatory aspects, without needing to refer the matter.
Mr Thomas said Hub.Legal published legal guides on its website and could provide business development and HR advice too.
While the legal market would “definitely” continue to consolidate, he said, “there will still be a lot of small law firms. Local businesses like local law firms to do their work. I can’t see that changing in the immediate future”.