Market monitor

A personal injury claims mediation business, an American law firm and one of the largest local authority shared legal services in the country are among the latest alternative business structures to be licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Slater & Gordon has entered into an agreement to acquire Quindell plc’s professional services division in return for upfront consideration of £637m, with an estimated £40m to follow from a 50% earn-out from existing noise-induced hearing loss cases.

The Simplify Group – the legal services group that owns QualitySolicitors – has added online business Evident Legal to its portfolio. Evident began life in 2011 as a law firm franchise called Simplify the Law, before reinventing itself in late 2012 as an online document business.

One possible occupation for future lawyers will be as a computer programmer, writing code for apps or working alongside an independent legal technology provider, according to the vision of a leading futurologist.

A business offering unregulated legal services and HR consultancy is to launch an alternative business structure (ABS) to add reserved areas of law done in-house to its extensive menu of employment and HR advice.

Legal lead generator National Accident Helpline today unveiled strong results for its first year as an AIM-listed business and indicated that it will continue to move beyond its core of personal injury to other areas of consumer law.

Fairpoint Group plc – which last year bought two law firms – said today that its financial success in 2014 has laid the foundations for further acquisitions. The AIM-listed business hitherto focused on ‘debt solutions’.

Nottingham Law School, the first in the country to apply for an alternative business structure (ABS) licence, aims to offer young entrepreneurs a paid-for business advice service, it has emerged.

Quindell confirmed today that it is considering a deal with Slater & Gordon that would see the listed Australian firm buy its legal division for £640m plus receipts from the settlement of noise-induced hearing loss cases.

The biggest conveyancing firms have benefited the most from the recession, while the number of practices involved in conveyancing has continued to fall, a survey has revealed.

Nottingham Law School, part of Nottingham Trent University, has applied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for an alternative business structure licence that would allow it to create a “teaching law firm”.

Insurance giant RSA, formerly Royal and Sun Alliance, has entered the legal services market by obtaining a licence for an alternative business structure in partnership with national firm Parabis. RSA Law will go live next month.

An online family law service that uses barristers to triage a client’s requirements and connect them with the experts needed to assist – whether they are barristers, solicitors, mediators, financial advisers, arbitrators, collaborative lawyers or therapists – has gone live this week.

A large majority of law firms think that, over the next five years, “innovation in providing legal services will be paramount” as they reach the limit of cost-cutting measures, a survey has found.

Large law firms are most worried about the threat from alternative business structures (ABSs) and accountancy firms, but interest in becoming ABSs themselves is waning fast, new research has found.