Legal Services Act

Liverpool law firm Camps has launched a new consumer brand – Your Legal Friend – as part of its “multi-channel” response to the personal injury market. It said the launch follows research to ensure the brand reflects both what the company stands for and delivers what its customers most value.

Brilliant Law, the alternative business structure that was set up with investment from BetFair founder Bert Black, has just received a further seven-figure cash injection. One of the new investors, lawyer turned investment banker Jag Mundi, has also joined as a non-executive director.

The Legal Ombudsman is to begin work on what types of complaints it should accept from non-clients amid reports of lawyers harassing third parties over alleged debts, violating their privacy and doling out abusive treatment in court.

Tooks Chambers – the civil liberties set led by campaigning QC Michael Mansfield – has today announced that it has begun the process of dissolution as a “direct result of the government’s policies on legal aid”.

The trust that solicitors engender among their clients should be leveraged, with other services operating under legal professionals’ banner within alternative business structures, according to the head of one of the newest ABSs.

The chairman of the Legal Services Board has criticised the “continuing spats” between the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority. David Edmonds also praised the improvements made by the SRA to the process for licensing alternative business structures.

An alternative business structure with access to clients with assets of more than £13bn has been launched by the Country Gentlemen’s Association, whose members who are mainly landowners, farmers, and retired military personnel.

The strategic alliance between Riverview Law and DMH Stallard has borne its first fruit, with the pair promising to handle mergers and acquisitions of any size on a fixed fee.

The Legal Services Board is to issue statute-backed guidelines to compel legal regulators to follow its vision of how reforms resulting from the Legal Education and Training Review should be implemented.

Slater & Gordon yesterday launched its first UK television advertising campaign as it bids to become “a household name”. Costing more than £1m in the launch phase, the firm used M&C Saatchi to create a series of adverts, starting with one on personal injury.

The Bar Standards Board has made a bid for formal independence from the barristers it oversees – the second frontline regulator to use the Ministry of Justice’s review of legal services regulation to make the case.

The country’s first alternative business structure and largest conveyancing business revealed strong annual results yesterday. Premier Property Lawyers – which became an ABS on 6 October 2011 – is part of My Home Move, which also has a panel management operation.

Capita, the outsourcing giant that yesterday announced plans to buy a law firm, remains on the acquisition trail and is also looking for a top-20 law firm to partner with, Legal Futures can report.

Outsourcing giant Capita plc has reached a conditional agreement to acquire Optima Legal Services pending the grant of an alternative business structure licence.

New business structures are more productive and innovative than traditional law firms, Legal Services Board research has found. It also said that alternative business structures are “starting to have an impact” on some parts of the market and collectively have a 5% market share.