Alternative business structures

Small and medium-sized law firms “face the most threat” from new entrants and increased competition, a wide-ranging survey of the UK legal services market has found.

An entrepreneur has revealed plans to combine a claims management company, a consumer website and the clinical negligence department of a top 100 firm to form a market-dominating alternative business structure.

Thomas Miller, an international group of companies providing specialist insurance, investment and professional services, is to launch an alternative business structure next month.

A debt collection business has become an alternative business structure (ABS) and can now offer an end-to-end service that enables it to collect, litigate and enforce clients’ debt.

Quindell was the centre of renewed criticism this week over the grant of over 8m in share options to Richard Rose, the AIM-listed company’s new non-executive chairman, whose appointment was announced on Monday.

DBS Law, a fast-growing general civil practice based in Birmingham, has become an alternative business structure as it looks to build on its dramatic growth over recent years.

US online legal services provider LegalZoom – which claims to be the best-known legal brand in America – has today become the first US business to be licensed as an alternative business structure.

David Hassall, a senior partner turned barrister whose career mirrors recent changes in legal services, has set up an alternative business structure – which he intends to operate on a ‘John Lewis’ profit share model.

The Legal Services Board still has “concerns” about the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority approves applications for alternative business structures and will not be ending its monitoring for the time being, it has emerged.

There is set to be increased turbulence in the legal market, with more new entrants, consolidation and the exit of those who cannot adapt, the strategy director of the Legal Services Board has predicted.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel today expressed concerned that “the recent emphasis on deregulation… is being taken too far”, while also praising the innovation seen to date through alternative business structures.

The first body to represent alternative business structures and other new-style legal practices has been launched, Legal Futures can reveal. The ABS & NewLaw Advisory Council is chaired by Jenny Beck of Co-operative Legal Services.

The march of accountancy firms into legal services took a further step today when EY announced it had obtained a license from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to set up an alternative business structure.

The average time taken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to approve alternative business structure applications has fallen to an average of three months, it has emerged. As a result the Legal Services Board may end its formal monitoring of the authority’s progress.

‘Dispersed’ firm Keystone Law has set out an ambitious growth strategy for the firm in the wake of taking external investment, which will see it more than double the number of its offices.