Market monitor

Morrish Solicitors has become the first law firm to take external investment from a trade union. The Leeds practice has formed an alternative business structure with its client, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association.

Online giant LegalZoom – said to be the best-known legal brand in America – has soft-launched its UK service with the aim of giving consumers and small businesses “a smarter way to engage with a lawyer”, Legal Futures can reveal.

A sole practitioner has joined forces with a claims management and marketing company to form an alternative business structure with the eventual goal of providing marketing for a range of professionals, including lawyers and accountants.

An international law firm has launched a start-up alternative business structure to carry out recovery work after being promised cases with a debt value of £40m by existing corporate clients.

A US company looking to re-engineer the divorce process through an innovative technology platform and process has laid out its plans to come to the UK, Legal Futures can reveal. Wevorce recently raised $1.7m (£1m) in new funding.

The “balloon has burst” on networks of law firms grouping together to share marketing, while the appetite among solicitors for collaboration with their peers is growing, the founder of a small firm legal network said this week.

The In-Deed conveyancing brand has been acquired by the owner of an online property panel – the final step in the dissolution of the country’s first alternative business structure (ABS) failure.

The large majority of home movers do not opt for the cheapest conveyancing, and are generally happy with the service provided by their solicitor or licensed conveyancer, major new research has found.

A new business owned by “non-solicitor entrepreneurs” who have already invested £10m is promising to revolutionise the way in which criminal defence work is undertaken. Defence Hub is predicting that it will turnover more than £50m in its first year.

A ‘virtual network’ of law firms that claims to be the first of its kind is gearing up to launch in February, aimed at giving smaller higher street firms a national reach and helping them compete with larger firms.

One of the country’s largest debt advice companies has bought a high street law firm to offer additional services to customers and become “a major player in the legal services market”. MoneyPlus Group is backed by private equity firm Palatine.

Slater & Gordon’s series of acquisitions is set to topple the likes of Irwin Mitchell and Thompsons and gain it the leading position in the hugely competitive online personal injury market, an analysis seen exclusively by Legal Futures has found.

QualitySolicitors is to launch the ‘QS Price Promise’ that could see all 120 member firms ditch hourly billing early next year, it announced today. It wants to become “the first consumer legal service to offer fixed fees for all legal services – including litigation”.

Slater & Gordon has announced a commitment of more than £500,000 to help fund research into the social and medical issues that impact its clients. Meanwhile, Minster Law has opened a 30-strong London office as part of its continuing growth.

Slater & Gordon will have more than 5% of the UK personal injury market, and number one or two market share position in most consumer law practice areas, it claimed today after announcing details of its long-awaited acquisition of Manchester firm Pannone.