Market monitor

Partners and staff at listed law firm Gateley sold £11m worth of shares yesterday – making £27m since it went public – amid a burst of news about listed legal businesses, including Knights and Redde.

Law firms must recognise that the market for wills is changing and that younger people are attracted by online wills, after research showed the average age of will-makers was 58.

Smaller law firms are unable to pay the high salaries that top candidates for jobs are demanding and this is putting them under economic pressure, a survey of 4,000 practices has concluded.

A niche London disputes practice has become the first law firm to sign up to the Good Business Charter – an ethical business initiative that supported by both the CBI and TUC.

The four leading will-writing brands are beginning to take “a noticeable market share”, new research has suggested. It also found that a majority of probate matters are now handled on a fixed-fee basis.

Listed law firm Knights is stepping up its consolidation strategy, unveiling its third acquisition of 2020 with a deal to buy a Nottingham law firm for up to £8.3m, and agreeing a new £40m credit facility.

A north-west law firm has launched a referral scheme for other solicitors, against a national backdrop where the survival of networks formerly in Pannone’s Connect2Law suggests the model is alive and well.

The US law firm that pioneered the model of senior lawyers leaving big firms to take control of their own practices – and is the biggest of its kind – has opened in London, Legal Futures can reveal.

Community care legal aid “could disappear altogether” as a specialism as advice deserts expand, the Law Society has warned. Some 79% of local authorities now have no publicly funded services.

The Civil Procedure Rule Committee last week put off approving the rules for the new whiplash portal until next month, making the April start-date all-but impossible.

An alternative business structure that combines legal and political advice has hired Theresa May’s former chief of staff as well as a former chief of the defence staff.

Seven legal advice services have received support in the latest round of grants from the Access to Justice Foundation, which has been boosted by a major pledge from a well-known London law firm.

Large law firms are damaging their profitability by poor scoping of work and under-pricing it, and are also set to penalise lawyers who offer clients overly large discounts, a survey has found.

Merger activity among law firms continues apace, with deals done across the country – including a leading criminal legal aid practice that has completed two in rapid succession and is on the hunt for more.

An alternative business structure owned equally by two law firms and an accountancy practice has recorded a 1,200% surge in post-tax profits.