Legal Services Act

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) officials were wrong to tell MPs this week that the former Chief Legal Ombudsman, Adam Sampson, was dismissed from his post. The MoJ has sought to blame the Office of Legal Complaints – the board that oversees the Legal Ombudsman service – for the error.

There is no reason why solicitors setting up a new law firm should not do so as an alternative business structure, the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. Mr Philip predicted that solicitors would in the future be ” business people first”.

National Accident Helpline (NAH) has announced its third and largest acquisition since becoming a listed company, after agreeing to buy Bush & Company Rehabilitation Ltd for £28m. It announced a placing of new shares to raise £14.2m, which will part fund the cash consideration for the deal.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is to recruit more ombudsmen to triage complaints against lawyers in a major reorganisation that aims to improve the quality of its decision making, Legal Futures can reveal. Steve Green, chairman of the Office for Legal Complaints – the body that oversees LeO – admitted that “speed had got out of kilter with quality”.

Nottingham Law School has created the first “teaching law firm” for students after being granted an alternative business structure licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. It will allow students to work in its Legal Advice Centre as a fully regulated organisation as part of their studies.

The new legal business set up by the former head of Quindell Legal Services is poised to start its acquisition programme after being authorised as an alternative business structure (ABS) by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

It is important that government plans to enhance the quality of criminal defence advocacy in publicly funded cases “should not be designed around one particular professional group”, the Legal Services Board has warned. The comments can be read as coded concern that some of the proposals seem weighted in favour of barristers.

A three-way merger into a new alternative business structure has created a top 200 law firm, Legal Futures can reveal. The ABS, Taylor Rose TTKW, is made up of Peterborough-headquartered Taylor Rose Law, its associated costs firm Jaggards, and London firm Tucker Turner Kingsley Wood.

The former chief executive of Quindell Legal Services (QLS) has admitted that he was wrong to sell a business he had built up over 13 years to the troubled plc two years ago. However, Phil Hodgkinson said he had learnt a lot from the “Quindell experience”.

The co-founder of Britain’s only trade union-owned alternative business structure (ABS) has warned high street lawyers that there is nothing to stop it competing with them. He also expressed concern that the profession was becoming obsessed with profit at the expense of the client.

MTA Solicitors, the alternative business structure behind the consumer-facing high street LawStore brand, this week opened its third store and plans to open a fourth by the end of the year. MTA has begun to sign up panels of local law firms to deal with instructions it cannot handle.

A fast-growing consumer credit management group in the middle of acquisition by a company funded by the global investor that also backed LegalZoom, has launched an alternative business structure. Lowell Group employs more than 1,200 people.

A Bar Standards Board-regulated entity that challenges unlawful detention is to put on free immigration advice clinics, including one at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. Meanwhile, a north-west BSB entity run by two solicitors hopes to expand its boutique family law practice into overseas private client work.

Slater & Gordon recorded a profit after tax of nearly £20m on turnover of £128m from its UK operation in the last financial year, its audited results have shown. The first month of Slater Gordon Solutions (SGS) – the new name for the professional services division acquired from Quindell – brought in £17m of income, at a net loss of £2.1m.

Confusion over law firm complaints and the new European directive on alternative dispute resolution is set to continue, the chair of the legal services consumer panel has predicted. Elisabeth Davies said the panel was taken by surprise by the Legal Ombudsman’s change of heart on the issue.