Alternative business structures

An ambitious new firm of licensed conveyancers has developed its own case-tracking app in a bid to become the biggest conveyancing business in the country. Managing director Simon Bath said the firm had funding from individual investors and private equity.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a study of the legal services sector for consumers and small businesses so as to examine “long-standing concerns” about affordability and standards of service. The CMA said concerns had also been raised about the “complexity of the current regulatory framework”.

Co-operative Legal Services is making a significant investment in face-to-face advice for the first time after acquiring a wills, trust and probate company. It is further evidence that, despite changes in the wider group following its well-publicised troubles, legal services remains a core service.

Listed UK businesses with a strong legal element have proven good investments over the past year, outperforming the FTSE indicies, a Legal Futures analysis has shown. While both the FTSE 100 and FTSE All-Share indicies fell during 2015, almost all law-related shares were up – some spectacularly so.

LV= has created its legal offering to offer an extra service to its members and customers, rather than to make any great profit, its claims director has told Legal Futures. The new venture is not an alternative business structure, unlike all the other such arrangements between insurers and law firms.

Slater & Gordon (S&G) has remained tight-lipped as two Australian law firms invite shareholders in S&G to register for potential group actions against it. One of the firms, Maurice Blackburn, said concerns centred on the “timing and accuracy” of information released by S&G.

The Bar Standards Board has rejected suggestions that its application to become an alternative business structure licensing authority will unnecessarily restrict the extent of non-lawyer ownership and so have a detrimental effect on competition.

The finance directors of large law firms prefer to stick with more traditional forms of funding for their practices that do not involve accepting external investment, new research has indicated.

Shareholders in Gateley – the first UK law firm to float – are to see the first fruits of their investment after the company announced an initial dividend on the back of strong first-half results. Gateley’s revenue for the six months to 31 October was up 10.9% to £29.6m, with profit before tax rising 11.5% to £2.9m.

The Bar Standard Board expects to regulate just 20 alternative business structures each year in the first three years after it becomes a licensing authority. Its prediction likely reflects caution prompted by the weaker than expected take-up of BSB-regulated entities.

The law firm acting on behalf of hundreds of investors in Quindell has today issued its letter of claim over alleged misrepresentations made by the company. Your Legal Friend – the consumer-facing brand of Liverpool firm Camps – has issued on behalf of an initial claimant group of 342 retail investors.

A pioneering online legal business aimed at SMEs has obtained an alternative business structure licence to reassure clients nervous of engaging with internet-based legal advice services that it is also a regulated law firm.

Pure Legal, the alternative business structure set up by former head of Quindell Legal Services Phil Hodgkinson, has announced its first purchase of a law firm. Pure has bought Pryers, a medical negligence specialist based in York, for £13m.

A Canadian law firm which runs offices inside Walmart supermarkets is planning to almost double in size next year, it has emerged. Mark Morris, co-founder of Axess Law, said the firm could potentially expand into the USA and the UK.

A proposal by CILEx Regulation to make it easier for paralegals to become qualified legal executives has been fiercely rejected as likely to cause “confusion to employers and consumers” by the new voluntary paralegals regulator.