Market monitor

There has been the usual spate of law firm mergers and acquisitions up and down the country coinciding with the end of the traditional indemnity year, including the continuing growth of national crime firm Tuckers and a Scottish firm entering England for the first time.

Outer Temple Chambers has taken the unprecedented step of setting up what is effectively a separate international law firm, employing a solicitor. Outer Temple International, a Bar Standards Board-regulated entity, has now secured insurance and is set to go live this week.

Sheffield law firm SSB Law has left the QualitySolicitors network to focus on its own brand instead at a time when it says “the traditional law firm approach has a limited future”. It said it joined because “there was a basis for a national brand” but over time there was “an increasing conflict” with its own brand.

PwC – the first of the ‘big four’ accountants to gain an alternative business structure (ABS) licence – has become a true multi-disciplinary practice by merging its connected law firm into the wider business, in a move that has been welcomed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Leading investor James Caan has sold his stake in Staffordshire-based law firm Knights Professional Services, Legal Futures can reveal. Mr Caan invested in Knights in 2012, since when the firm has grown its turnover from £8m to £40m and added complementary services to its core legal offering.

The personal injury reforms (PI) first announced 10 months ago are still coming, despite the Brexit hiatus – so claimant lawyers have to be prepared, they were told at last week’s PI Futures conference in Liverpool. The default assumption had to be that change would happen.

Profit is continuing to rise at Co-operative Legal Services (CLS), half-year results published today have revealed. In the first six months of 2016, sales rose 10% to £11m, and it made a £1m profit – having broken even during the same period of 2015.

Saga, the over-50s insurance and travel company, has closed its legal services business, Legal Futures can reveal – but said it may yet return to the market in future. The company was hit by the collapse last year of Parabis, with which it had set up a joint venture alternative business structure, Saga Law, in late 2013.

NAHL Group plc – the AIM-listed legal marketing and services business that owns National Accident Helpline – expects to play a “more pro-active role in the entire conduct and financing of a PI case” following the government’s next round of reforms, it told the stock exchange today.

A third of senior managers at law firms expect private equity to be an important source of funding in the next few years, a survey has found. A quarter also believed that other financial investors, including high net-worth individuals or family offices, will play a key role.

Slater & Gordon has announced that it is taking legal action against Watchstone Group – formerly Quindell – over its £637m purchase of Quindell’s professional services division last year. At the start of 2016 S&G unveiled a massive write-down of goodwill arising from the acquisition.

Listed law firm Gateley has continued its acquisition of complementary businesses by spending up to £2m to buy a firm of surveyors that will work alongside its property practice. Hamer Associates specialises in easements and wayleaves, and compulsory purchase and compensation.

The transformation of AIM-listed Fairpoint Group into a legal services business continued apace in the first six months of 2016, its half-year results showed yesterday. Revenue increased by 24% to £28.3m in the period, of which £21.5m was from legal services, nearly twice as much as a year before. Profits were steady at £4m.

Lawyers need to embrace innovation to find new ways of delivering services and simplifying working practices, the government and senior judiciary said today as they unveiled their vision for the digital transformation of the justice system. The £1bn plan includes the prospect of people being convicted online for minor offences, and plans for fixed fees across as much of the civil system as possible.

One of the first local authority alternative business structures is projected to increase its turnover 30% over the next year, and has already cut the fee rates for its shareholder clients by 20%, it revealed yesterday. LGSS Law is now also advising more than 100 client organisations within the public and not-for-profit sectors.