Market monitor

Hugh James, the biggest firm in Wales, is extending its law firm network into the north of the country, it has emerged. It already has 120 firms signed up to Legal Network Wales.

There could be “carnage” among personal injury (PI) firms this year as the full impact of the Jackson reforms and portal fee cuts finally hits home, lawyers have predicted.

North-west firm Fletchers Solicitors has launched a medical negligence marketing network with three other niche practices in a bid to compete with the biggest players in the market.

Small and medium-sized law firms “face the most threat” from new entrants and increased competition, a wide-ranging survey of the UK legal services market has found.

More than a third of advice agencies that have so far implemented charging for legal services appear to have done so sustainably, a survey of post-LASPO innovations has found.

A law firm set up to give the public quick and easy online access to barristers’ opinions has been launched by a criminal law solicitor along with two QCs and around 20 chambers across the country.

Law firms are failing to respond to the disruptive effects of new entrants to legal services and continue to measure their success using traditional performance metrics, according to a report on market influences in 2015.

An entrepreneur has revealed plans to combine a claims management company, a consumer website and the clinical negligence department of a top 100 firm to form a market-dominating alternative business structure.

Thomas Miller, an international group of companies providing specialist insurance, investment and professional services, is to launch an alternative business structure next month.

Fewer than half of managing partners at the top 200 law firms think that recent mergers in the market have been successes, new research has found – even though most expect major consolidation in the next two years.

The innovative flight delay compensation claim practice launched by Cheshire alternative business structure Bott & Co nearly two years ago has just completed its 10,000th successful claim – and has a further 20,000 clients going through its system.

Alternative business structure Quindell is in talks to sell an operating division to Slater & Gordon, it was announced yesterday, while due diligence on personal injury file transfers is currently underway.

A new firm which aims to break the mould of advice to start-ups and SMEs by recruiting lawyers who run their own businesses has opened in London. It is operating as a trading name of ‘virtual firm’ gunnercooke

AIM-listed National Accident Helpline plc (NAH) saw income rise by just over 10% in 2014 on the back of a significant increase in enquiries, it reported yesterday.

Jim Sutcliffe, appointed deputy chairman of alternative business structure Quindell earlier this month, has resigned from the board of the Financial Reporting Council.