Legal Services Act

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has begun an investigation into the emergence of ‘professional’ McKenzie Friends who charge litigants in person for their services, it has emerged.

Riverview Law has announced a collaboration with US technology pioneer Legal OnRamp to offer a service that can cope with massive regulatory burdens imposed on financial institutions to avoid a repeat of the 2008 banking crisis.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has fought off the first judicial review to reach court, brought by a former solicitor unhappy that it had ordered his bill to be slashed. The case, involving a CFA, comes as LeO issues a report outlining problems caused by ‘no win, no fee’ deals.

Morrish Solicitors has become the first law firm to take external investment from a trade union. The Leeds practice has formed an alternative business structure with its client, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association.

Online giant LegalZoom – said to be the best-known legal brand in America – has soft-launched its UK service with the aim of giving consumers and small businesses “a smarter way to engage with a lawyer”, Legal Futures can reveal.

Chartered legal executives are set to have full parity with solicitors after the Legal Services Board gave them the right to practise litigation and advocacy independently.

The Bar Council and Bar Standards Board have published a protocol for ensuring the latter’s regulatory independence, fulfilling undertakings the pair gave to the Legal Services Board.

A sole practitioner has joined forces with a claims management and marketing company to form an alternative business structure with the eventual goal of providing marketing for a range of professionals, including lawyers and accountants.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has hit back over a report questioning why it introduced both entity and outcomes-focused regulation, saying it was acting in the interests of both consumers and lawyers.

The move by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to embrace entity-based and outcomes-focused regulation is hard to understand, major new research commissioned by the Legal Services Board and Law Society has claimed.

Criminal law barristers need to consider significant changes to their business models if they are to remain competitive, the Legal Services Board has argued. It said liberalisation is one of the reasons the government does not need to intervene in the criminal advocacy market.

An international law firm has launched a start-up alternative business structure to carry out recovery work after being promised cases with a debt value of £40m by existing corporate clients.

A US company looking to re-engineer the divorce process through an innovative technology platform and process has laid out its plans to come to the UK, Legal Futures can reveal. Wevorce recently raised $1.7m (£1m) in new funding.

Former policeman Steve Green today cleared the final hurdle to his appointment as the new chair of the Office for Legal Complaints – the body that oversees the Legal Ombudsman – after he was endorsed by MPs on the justice select committee.

The “balloon has burst” on networks of law firms grouping together to share marketing, while the appetite among solicitors for collaboration with their peers is growing, the founder of a small firm legal network said this week.