Market monitor

In the second instalment of our new Legal Pioneers series, we profile Parabis, which currently operates as a co-operative of different insurance-related regulated companies. When the Legal Services Act goes lives, however, integration of legal and non-legal functions and external investment are on the horizon.

Rocket Lawyer, the Google-backed American online legal document business, is set to launch in the UK next year and will be looking for lawyers to offer services to its customers, Legal Futures can reveal. The company says the UK is an attractive destination for its products.

A Yorkshire law firm is joining forces with the founder of Freeserve to launch the first of a planned national network of city centre law shops under the brand Legal365, we can reveal. They will form an ABS that could seek external investment.

Strong law firms are getting stronger while the weak are getting weaker as traditional sources of legal work dry up, a new survey seen exclusively by Legal Futures has concluded. The National Solicitors Selling Survey also found that more than half of firms surveyed saw ABSs as a threat.

Mid-tier City law firms may have the greatest incentive to go to the public markets to fund their merger and acquisition activities, the Legal Services Board has suggested. But there is a risk of an “investment bubble” where external investment in alternative business structures proves only temporary for short-term gain.

Nearly a third of the top 100 law firms are considering taking external capital, while a few see floating on a stock exchange as “likely”, new research has claimed. A survey of finance directors at the top 100 by Sweet & Maxwell found that “a significant number” of the firms are considering embracing alternative business structures “at an early stage”.

Internet behemoth Google has made its second foray into the legal market by investing in US online legal service Rocket Lawyer. Its venture capital arm, Google Ventures, has joined a group of investors putting $18.5m (£11.4m) into the company, which provides a subscription-based legal document assembly service.

A London barrister has launched an online referral service that passes instructions to public access barristers as well as solicitors. Karen Taylor, head of Themis Chambers, runs Find A Legal Specialist, which filters the needs of potential clients – including the complexity of the case – through a series of questions.

A leading City lawyer is targeting major Chinese and Indian law firms with a view to using alternative business structures to help them build global practices from the UK. Stephen Kines said ABSs will provide them with a flexible structure.

Legal Pioneers is a major new Legal Futures series profiling innovative legal services providers. In the first instalment, Neil Rose travels to Bromley in Kent to visit MTA Solicitors, which has three different legal practices, a shopping centre store, and nine (soon to be 10) other ancilliary businesses.

A law firm in Blackburn will next week launch a campaign to make legal services more accessible to deaf people as part of its efforts to become what it says is the only law firm in the country for the deaf and hard of hearing. Joseph Frasier Solicitors’ campaign is called “Representing your right to be heard”.

QualitySolicitors’ (QS) deal to run ‘Legal Access Points’ (LAPs) within WHSmith stores was launched on Friday with celebrity fanfare and national TV coverage. Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden unveiled the first of an eventual 500 nationwide LAPs at Westfield shopping centre in west London, before a crowd of onlookers and autograph hunters.

A new online service that allows potential clients to ask solicitors a question for free – and get a response within an hour – is set to launch to the profession shortly. The website, www.rightsolicitor.co.uk, already ranks at the top of Google behind only the Law Society for the words ‘solicitor’ and ‘solicitors’.

Competition over fees, reduced work volumes and other worries will result in far fewer firms specialising in conveyancing in the future, a new survey has predicted. The poll of Conveyancing Association members found them anxious about the future, with alternative business structures and reduced lender panels key sources of concern.

QualitySolicitors’ tie-up with WHSmith goes live next week, with “Legal Access Points” going in 130 stores in the first wave, we can reveal – along with first sight of how they will look. Dozens more law firms are set to join the network this autumn, hand in hand with their LAPs in local branches of the retailer.