Legal Services Act

Your Legal Friend, a trading name of Liverpool law firm Camps Solicitors, has confirmed that it has launched its long-awaited shareholder group action against Quindell plc.

One of the country’s leading local government innovators has told his council that “in future, we will no longer have a legal business that happens to use technology. Instead, it will be a digital business that happens to do law”. He also said that public sector lawyers have a “greater duty than most” to address the country’s access to justice deficit.

A Canadian report on alternative business structures has issued a cautious verdict on majority non-lawyer ownership, judging the model to be as yet unproven, based on the experience so far in England and Wales and Australia.

The shareholders who sold national law firm Simpson Millar to Fairpoint Group plc in June 2014 have received their full £3m earn-out after the practice exceeded its first-year financial targets. Fairpoint paid an initial £7m in cash – on a debt-free, cash-free basis – and 1.4m shares in the group.

Bates Wells & Braithwaite has become the first UK law firm to gain ‘B Corporation’ certification to mark its social and environmental performance, and as part of the process had to amend its LLP deed to provide that the firm is not just run for the benefit of the partners.

A barristers’ chambers is set to launch an alternative business structure to help it obtain international work, because it will give the appearance of a solicitors’ firm to foreign clients who do not understand direct access.

National Accident Helpline today reported strong first-half results as it looks for further acquisitions in both the personal injury and conveyancing markets. The AIM-listed legal marketing business said revenue was up 15% to £25.4m for the first six months of 2015, with operating profit increasing 21% to £6.5m.

Leading accountancy firm Kingston Smith has been granted a wide range of waivers from Solicitors Regulation Authority rules as part of its groundbreaking transfer of alternative business structure regulator. We also have ABS news from Fletchers, Express Solicitors and Legal Recoveries & Collections.

US firm Cooley – which launched in the UK at the start of the year – has become the latest to make a play for the UK technology start-up market by introducing a British version of its online resource centre, including free legal documents.

A pioneering business services company that was one of the first in the world to sell corporate information online has launched an alternative business structure, with ambitions to add a range of legal services to its offering.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has been discharged from an undertaking it gave nearly two years ago to deal with concerns over the way it dealt with changes to the cab-rank rule. But in doing so, the Legal Services Board said it had continuing misgivings that have “directed our attention towards the BSB’s approach to regulation more broadly”.

Consumers using ‘unbundled’ legal services generally report a positive experience and it has the potential to widen access to justice, groundbreaking exploratory research has found. However, it made clear that other solutions were also needed to address the legal needs of “more vulnerable consumers” unable to unbundle.

Leading accountancy firm Kingston Smith has become the first alternative business structure (ABS) to switch regulators after being granted a licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Regulation accounts for between 15% and 23% of the costs of law firms, money they would generally not bother spending if they were not required to, an indicative study by the Legal Services Board has found. However, the opposite was the case for lawyers practising as individuals.

Improving market conditions saw Gateley record revenue growth of 11.5% and profits up 32% in its last financial year, the listed law firm told the stock exchange today. Becoming a public company is helping to differentiate the firm, improve its profile and aid recruitment, it also told investors.