Market monitor

Alternative business structures (ABSs) are increasingly on the radar of the top 100 law firms, with a growing number recognising them as threats to their profitability – and one in five planning ABS conversion themselves, according to new research.

A commercial claims management company is considering converting to an alternative business structure (ABS) to further its work in aiding investors recoup losses from complex investments which they have been mis-sold.

QualitySolicitors this week launches its public attack on ‘faceless’ legal advice provided by new entrants to the legal market and national law firms, with a series of posters across 1,000 billboard and poster sites.

A Mayfair-based private client firm that has close links to a wealth manager and a personal injury practice that is diversifying into other areas of law have become the first new alternative business structures in nearly a month.

The law firm that yesterday agreed to be bought by Quindell Portfolio did so in the face of a “future laced with uncertainty” for personal injury practitioners, its managing partner has told Legal Futures.

AIM-listed Quindell Portfolio is to acquire its second leading claimant personal injury (PI) law firm after reaching agreement to purchase Pinto Potts for around £14m. The deal also extends Quindell’s offering to insurers beyond PI.

Some of the country’s biggest legal brands are going head to head on our screens this month after Irwin Mitchell launched its first-ever television advertising campaign, Russell Jones & Walker unveiled a new approach to promoting its Claims Direct brand and QualitySolicitors (QS) started its second round of adverts.

An Edinburgh law firm claims to have become the first in the UK to embrace full employee ownership of the business. The new employee-owned company, Fox & Partners, gives all of the firm’s 10 staff an ownership stake in the new entity.

“Numerous” external investors will appear alongside consolidation and new structures once the “floodgates of change” hit the personal injury market next year – with just five or six claimant firms likely to dominate – an authoritative new report has predicted.

A company that currently provides small businesses with accountancy and HR advice is set to move into legal services, with an alternative business structure application and the acquisition of law firms likely, Legal Futures can reveal.

A new business that brings together a law firm with seven other service providers needed to manage a motor accident from collision to settlement has applied for alternative business structure status, Legal Futures can report.

The AA has applied for an alternative business structure licence, Legal Futures can reveal. It follows the success of the motoring giant’s online legal document service, which was launched two years ago.

Over-50s specialist Saga has today launched a new range of legal services which it claims aims to make the market “more straightforward in terms of charges, language and accessibility” – and has also applied for an alternative business structure licence.

Pressure from in-house lawyers has encouraged some law firms to come out of denial and realise that they need to find new ways to handle and price work, legal IT guru Professor Richard Susskind has claimed. However, there was still considerable resistance to alternative fee arrangements.

Two-thirds of commercial law firms are surprisingly confident of increasing profits by at least 10% in each of the next two years, despite concern about competition from ABSs, according to new research.