Market monitor

ABSs account for a third of all turnover in the personal injury market, the first accurate overview of the progress of alternative business structures has revealed.

Alternative business structure Quindell plc has had to shelve its much-trumpeted plans for a full listing on the London Stock Exchange, the company admitted today. The news has further hit the AIM-listed company’s share price.

In the latest of our series profiling the new breed of alternative business structure, we speak to Red Square London, a law firm and multi-disciplinary family office that provides services mainly to wealthy Russian and Russian-speaking clients.

A parliamentary inquiry has called for a push to encourage people to make wills and that will-writers should inform all clients that they are able to leave money to charity in them.

A set of chambers specialising in direct access cases and working only on a fixed fee basis has opened in Cheltenham. Cotswold Barristers also claims to have landed the biggest direct access case so far.

Trading in shares in National Accident Helpline (NAH) began on AIM yesterday as it emerged that Minster Law – the major claimant practice owned by insurance group BGL – is taking 15% of potential clients the company receives.

In the latest in our series tracking the fortunes of the new breed of alternative business structures (ABSs), we profile Bobby Dhanjal Wealth Management, which a year ago became the first financial services business to set up a legal arm.

Online barrister service myBarrister last week exceeded its target of raising £150,000 through crowd-funding. It has now raised more than £163,000 in just over two months from 65 individual investors – the largest of whom has put in £50,000.

Quindell chairman and chief executive Rob Terry saw his pay increase by nearly 50% in the last financial year, the alternative business structure’s annual report has revealed.

Two of the country’s largest trade unions – the GMB and Communications Workers Union – have today broken new ground by creating an alternative business structure (ABS). Unionline is essentially a not-for-profit ABS as any profits will be ploughed back into the unions.

Potential investors in Saga have been told that the over-50s specialist sees a “significant opportunity” to expand the customer base of its alternative business structure, Saga Law.

In the first of a new series tracking the experience of the new breed of alternative business structures (ABSs), we profile Crabtree Law, which was the first in-house team to become a standalone law firm.

Stobart Barristers – the most controversial new business of the Legal Services Act era to date – will no longer provide legal advice to the public, Legal Futures can reveal.

Leading private client firm Withers has launched a programme including start-up legal advice and magazine subscriptions aimed at helping entrepreneurs grow and protect their businesses.

Solicitors who consider themselves entreprenerial are proving much more active in changing the way they practise law, new research has suggested. However, only 22% of those polled said they believed the introduction of ABSs was a “positive”.