Legal Services Act

A partner at a small West London firm has taken ‘niche’ to a new level by specialising in litigation resulting from the first few turbulent years of digital currency bitcoin.

The biggest conveyancing firms have benefited the most from the recession, while the number of practices involved in conveyancing has continued to fall, a survey has revealed.

Nottingham Law School, part of Nottingham Trent University, has applied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for an alternative business structure licence that would allow it to create a “teaching law firm”.

MPs have called on the government to consult on whether there should be formal regulation of McKenzie Friends, whether or not they charge fees. They said encouraging the use of McKenzie Friends “may in some circumstances amount to a counsel of despair”.

Express Solicitors, the Manchester personal injury firm, is poised to make further acquisitions after securing £10m funding from the Royal Bank of Scotland. It said the money allowed a focus on growing the business “without having to compromise” on other areas.

Insurance giant RSA, formerly Royal and Sun Alliance, has entered the legal services market by obtaining a licence for an alternative business structure in partnership with national firm Parabis. RSA Law will go live next month.

An online family law service that uses barristers to triage a client’s requirements and connect them with the experts needed to assist – whether they are barristers, solicitors, mediators, financial advisers, arbitrators, collaborative lawyers or therapists – has gone live this week.

The Legal Services Board is returning to “first principles” as work begins to consider whether the Legal Services Act 2007 should be replaced, its chairman said today.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has put in place plans to fast-track alternative business structure and other new entity applications from criminal law firms in the event that the legal action against the government’s plans to reform legal aid fails.

A large majority of law firms think that, over the next five years, “innovation in providing legal services will be paramount” as they reach the limit of cost-cutting measures, a survey has found.

Large law firms are most worried about the threat from alternative business structures (ABSs) and accountancy firms, but interest in becoming ABSs themselves is waning fast, new research has found.

The Legal Services Board should not put the needs of business users of the courts before the “most vulnerable and disempowered”, the Bar Standards Board has argued.

Does non-lawyer ownership end damaging short-termism within law firms and improve both the economics and culture of legal practice, or does it risk standards and offer little in the way of increasing access to legal services?

The Law Society has told the Legal Ombudsman that solicitors’ practising certificate fees should not be used for ‘thought leadership’ exercises that extend beyond legal services.

London-based Mishcon de Reya, a rural firm in the Lake District, and a firm that currently carries out no reserved legal work at all are among the latest businesses to obtain alternative business structure licences.