Alternative business structures

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has given Australia’s Slater & Gordon the green light to take over Russell Jones & Walker after granting it the fifth alternative business structure licence. The move will kick-start a strategy that will include further acquisitions.

A law firm that aims to offer a white-label personal injury service to insurers and brokers yesterday became the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s fourth alternative business structure, and first in Wales.

The UK is on the cusp of a “litigation revolution” involving boutique alternative business structures offering externally-funded contingency fee deals, according to the chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, speaking at yesterday’s Legal Futures conference.

The American Bar Association has dropped plans for any changes to its policy prohibiting the non-lawyer ownership of law firms. Having rejected more radical ideas such as ABSs, it had proposed a form of legal disciplinary practice.

Any form of non-lawyer ownership of law firms is bad for clients, nine leading general counsel have claimed. The group of US-based in-house lawyers said they also detected no great interest in or need for non-lawyer ownership.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s is planning to increase its power to fine law firms from £2,000 to £250m, and to £50m for individuals, Legal Futures can reveal. The Law Society has described the move as “misconceived”.

Organisations whose in-house solicitors provide reserved legal activities to people other than their employer – such as insurers, associations and local authorities – will have to decide for themselves whether by law they need to become alternative business structures, according to the SRA.

Co-operative Legal Services and high street firms John Welch and Stammers, and Lawbridge Solicitors Ltd have today become the first alternative business structures licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Well-known legal expenses insurer Abbey Protection is to launch a three-pronged attack on the SME market once its application to become an alternative business structure has been approved, it has revealed.

Six criminal law barristers have set up a chambers structured as a partnership and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Artesian Law is already looking to expand due to the number of instructions it has received.

New York lawyers are banned from running the Big Apple office of a UK alternative business structure with non-lawyer owners, the New York State Bar’s committee on professional ethics announced yesterday.

More than a third of conveyancing firms are considering becoming an alternative business structure, new research has found. The survey also revealed predictions of large-scale closures of traditional law firms as a result of new competition.

There is in excess of £1bn of private equity money available for investment in the legal market, while at least one UK law firm will proceed to a public listing this year, one of the profession’s leading bankers, James Tsolakis of RBS, has predicted.

The legal aid reforms will open up opportunities for law firms, with alternative business structures (ABSs) offering one way to exploit them, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly claimed last week. The significance of ABSs “cannot be overstated”, he said.

Silverbeck Rymer may not be the last law firm acquired by Quindell Portfolio as it targets rapid growth to achieve a 15-20% share of the personal injury market over the next year, the AIM-listed company’s chief executive has told Legal Futures.