Market monitor

A network set up as an alternative to established will writing representative bodies has claimed that in less than a fortnight since launch, it has already received applications from a quarter as many prospective members as it planned to sign up in the whole of 2014.

Countrywide Conveyancing Services – an alternative business structure (ABS) that is one of the country’s largest conveyancing outfits – has issued a statement of its intent to grow by buying another leading property law firm.

The case for ‘micro’ law firms – small, boutique practices spun out of larger firms – is growing as lawyers struggle to control the ‘Leviathan’ of big practices, a top academic has argued.

One of the UK’s largest debt management companies, Harrington Brooks, which has an annual turnover of around £30m, has created an alternative business structure run by its head of legal services.

A long-standing seller of legal documents is set to launch a venture selling simple packages of documents aimed at website developers and people running online businesses.

Slater & Gordon has become “one of the UK’s largest general law firms” after completing the acquisition of Manchester-based Pannone on Friday – and indicated that it has not finished buying up practices.

An online legal service aimed at small businesses and “democratising the law” has almost completed its second round of ‘crowdfunding’, raising more than £100,000 in less than a month as it targets ambitious expansion.

Slater & Gordon is to concentrate on improving the performance of its UK operations, after an acquisitions spree that it claims has given it a 5% share of the claimant PI market. It remains unclear what progress is being made with the previously announced deal to buy Simpson Millar.

A central London firm of accountants has set up an alternative business structure (ABS) as a means of keeping control of legal work that it previously referred to third party law firms.

PwC Legal’s alternative business structure (ABS) licence will give its expansion plans “rocket fuel”, its UK senior partner has claimed. Speaking to Legal Futures, senior partner Shirley Brookes agreed with those describing the move as a ‘game changer’.

More mergers and acquisitions among mid-sized law firms are starting to happen, new research has indicated, on the day that well-known Manchester firm Linder Myers filed its intention to appoint administrators ahead of a possible sale or merger.

Alternative business structure Parabis Group is to create a branded franchise network of regional law firms to support its consumer law offering, after hiring former Connect2Law chief David Jabbari, Legal Futures can reveal.

The former head of construction at City giant Norton Rose has turned his legal consultancy into an alternative business structure, but has had difficulty finding a non-lawyer professional partner of similar standing to link up with.

The chief executive of a blue-chip global wealth adviser that administers £200bn of assets has predicted alternative business structures are a reform of law firm ownership that other countries will have to adopt – having just secured a licence itself.

Commercial law firms that think a recovering economy will save them from the imminent and major consolidation of the market are “deluding themselves”, Sir Nigel Knowles has warned. The trends in the legal market – including ABSs – will render many firms’ business models as obsolete.