Legal Services Act

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has said the Bar Council’s response to the Jeffrey review illustrated its “extreme reluctance” to “look forward and adapt to market conditions”.

The legal market is “too intimidating, too uniform and, in many cases, too expensive”, the new chairman of the Legal Services Board has warned. Sir Michael Pitt said also he would like to see lawyers’ rulebooks slimmed down.

The Institute of Professional Willwriters has won approval for a unique alternative business structure that will enable its members and others to access related legal services for their clients, and share in the fees generated.

The new chair of the Office for Legal Complaints – which oversees the Legal Ombudsman – has outlined his ambition for the service to cover unregulated providers of legal services and those offering legal advice as part of a wider package.

The Legal Services Board has attacked the Solicitors Regulation Authority for having “over-engineered” its approach to regulating multi-disciplinary alternative business structures and to approving non-lawyer owners.

The “top three winners” from personal injury market consolidation will be Slater & Gordon, Irwin Mitchell and Minster Law, a leading defendant insurer has predicted.

Chartered accountants will be able to carry out reserved probate work themselves, without the need to instruct a solicitor, from next month, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has said.

QualitySolicitors is to launch its ‘QS Price Promise’ in September, combined with a national TV advertising campaign, the network has revealed. It is also changing its approach to firms having to adopt the QS name.

Strong performance from its legal services arm boosted a trading update from Quindell plc, which it turn began to pull the alternative business structure out of the doldrums yesterday, with its share price shooting up 30% in the day.

Newtons, a rapidly expanding Yorkshire firm, is setting its sights on new offices in the south of England after appointing a former chairman of Cartridge World as a non-executive director.

The announcement yesterday that Alastair Cook has become a brand ambassador for Slater & Gordon failed to spark a turnaround in the embattled England cricket captain’s fortunes, as he was out for just five in the first Test against India.

Minster Law, the alternative business structure owned by financial services business BGL Group, has moved into travel claims after securing another major hire from Pannone, now part of Slater & Gordon.

Distinguished Chancery set Radcliffe Chambers has brought in a past chair of the Association of Women Solicitors as its chief executive, in the latest sign of chambers recognising the need for fresh thinking in how they operate.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has described as “increasingly frustrating” its wait to become a regulator of probate services and an alternative business structure licensing authority.

Slater & Gordon’s (S&G) new Linked to Law network will see cases going both ways between the alternative business structure and member firms, it has emerged.