Market monitor

Kent Legal Services – the legal arm of Kent County Council – is planning to launch an alternative business structure in conjunction with regional law firm Geldards, it has emerged.

Leading Italian multi-disciplinary firm Pirola Pennuto Zei & Associati has applied to become an alternative business structure, it has revealed. Pirola wants allow accountants and lawyers in its London partnership to share revenues and profits.

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.

Riverview Law, the combined law firm and barristers’ chambers that sells fixed-fee advice to businesses, is to shift its strategy of organic growth to one of acquisition to meet unexpected demand just two months after it launched.

Law centres and other not-for-profit organisations should be allowed to charge for advice to help counter the impact of legal aid cuts and reduced local authority funding, the Legal Services Board said today.

Two barristers and solicitor have opened the first law firm dedicated to bringing private prosecutions. Edmonds Marshall McMahon is focused particularly on fraud, counterfeiting and corporate crime.

A team of senior corporate financiers has joined forces with a law firm management consultancy specialising in alternative business structures to target mid-market law firms, Legal Futures can reveal.

One of the country’s largest barristers’ chambers has joined forces with Instant Law UK, as it rolls out its library-based video-conferencing service. Users will also have access to the first interactive, online debt and employment law service, in conjunction with a London law centre

Our regular round-up of news includes Quindell Portfolio’s latest acquisition, Simmons & Simmons moving City work to Bristol, the SRA’s City adviser joining Obelisk Legal, the Law Society withdrawing its PII broker list, and much more besides.

The continued rise in the cost of legal services at a time when consumer wealth has fallen could be putting people off seeking legal advice, new research has suggested. The Legal Services Board report also found indications of falling quality.

Rocket Lawyer, the Google-backed US online legal document service, has taken the next step in its plans to launch in the UK this year by opening a London office and recruiting a senior member of the LexisNexis team to lead it.

The Co-op – which yesterday received its alternative business structure licence – is to provide legal services through its banking network as it seeks to challenge the “legal postcode lottery”, it has announced.

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.