Legal Services Act

A senior lawyer at telecoms giant BT – which owns an alternative business structure – has become the newest member of the Legal Services Board. David Eveleigh has been joined on the board by Marina Gibbs, the director of competition policy at Ofcom.

Leading law firm network LawNet is set to expand after appointing well-known banker Chris Marston as its new chief executive. Mr Marston, currently head of professional practices at Lloyds Banking Group, will start in the new role in July.

Christina Blacklaws, who has spearheaded the development of Co-operative Legal Services, left the alternative business structure at the end of last month, Legal Futures can reveal.

Kent County Council’s legal services team is expecting a bumper response from law firms and other legal services providers after starting a unique procurement exercise for a joint venture partner within an alternative business structure.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has conducted a ‘mystery shopping’ exercise to assess consumers’ experience of online self-help tools for a divorce. Meanwhile, work by the panel to open up data held by regulators to be used by legal comparison websites took a major step forward.

An AIM-listed consumer financial services business is to acquire national law firm Simpson Millar – which had last year looked like being bought by Slater & Gordon – for £15m.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s approach to licensing non-traditional businesses as alternative business structures is “impacting competition, access to justice and negatively affecting consumers”, the Legal Services Board has claimed.

A virtual firm launched yesterday which hopes to attract 50 corporate and commercial lawyers billing a total of £15m a year by 2019. Carbon Law Partners aspires to the success of virtual law firms such as Keystone Law and Setfords.

QualitySolicitors has teamed up with a mediation provider to offer a fixed-fee legal solution for the type of small claims disputes that it said most “shortsighted” law firms will not touch. It said law firms were missing out on potential clients of the future.

A solicitor has merged her law practice with the family estate agency and finance business in an alternative business structure that is thought to be the first in Cumbria.

The possibility of introducing re-accreditation for QCs, meaning that silk would no longer be a permanent appointment, and a power to strip them of the rank in the event of misconduct, was floated last week.

The Law Society found itself at loggerheads with the Legal Services Consumer Panel last week after the pair placed themselves on opposite sides of the debate over who should run the process of choosing the chairman and board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Alternative business structure Quindell plc is spending nearly £150m a year in upfront case acquisition costs, it has emerged. The AIM-listed group is also developing a “collaboration protocol” with insurers that will lead to the pre-payment of legal costs.

A pioneering alternative business structure (ABS) has become one of the first legal practices to introduce employee ownership, while also developing a new form of billing that will see it agree a profit margin with clients, Legal Futures can reveal.

A FTSE-250 wealth management company is to launch an alternative business structure (ABS), it has emerged. The ABS is owned by Rathbone Brothers plc, a venerable City institution whose origins date back to 1742.