Legal Services Act

A new service offering people an ‘online solicitor’ to provide unlimited initial legal advice for £14 a month – backed by leading investor and former Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson – has recently gone live, Legal Futures can reveal.

A firm in Plymouth has become the first criminal law practice to become an alternative business structure as the pace of new licences from the Solicitors Regulation Authority continues to step up.

Gloucestershire high street firm Langley Wellington yesterday became the latest alternative business structure (ABS). Meanwhile, Berlad Graham has become the latest ‘virtual’ law firm to apply to become an ABS.

In-house lawyers want to encourage non-lawyers within their businesses to take a more ‘self-serve’ approach to creating and managing low-risk and low-value contracts as a way to drive efficiency, new research has found.

The Legal Services Board has begun work on moving towards regulating lawyers based on the work they do, rather than on their professional title, Legal Futures can reveal. However, it acknowledged that there will be huge historical and cultural barriers to overcome.

Remember the ProcureCo? Most have forgotten this corporate bolt-on to chambers, little more than two years after it was launched. We asked the Bar Council what happened to its big idea.

Third-party litigation funders thinking of investing in law firms to avoid liability for adverse costs will have to try their luck in front of the court after an important report on contingency fees refused to make a recommendation on whether this should be possible.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority should develop a fast track for legal disciplinary practices seeking approval to operate as alternative business structures, according to the largest of three firms granted their ABS licences yesterday.

It is hard to see which of the frontline regulators would regulate banks if will-writing and estate administration become reserved legal activities, the British Bankers Association has said. It also said FSA regulation covered what the Legal Services Board was seeking to do.

One of the country’s best-known personal injury lawyers has formed the latest alternative business structure as he prepares for the introduction of the Jackson reforms. Initially the move is to bring an accountant into partnership.

The strength of the Eddie Stobart brand means that hundreds of people a week are already seeking advice from its new barrister service, the company’s group legal director has told this website.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board have been warned to improve the way they regulate immigration practitioners or risk enforcement action by the Legal Services Board – including the ultimate sanction of losing their ability to regulate the area at all.

Standard contractual terms between solicitors and barristers are set to become a reality at long last after the Legal Services Board approved controversial changes to the cab-rank rule that will underpin them – albeit with some reluctance.

There is a “small but material rate of non-compliance” by solicitors with their complaints-handling requirements – and some bad attitudes towards complaints – confidential research by the Solictors Regulation Authority has found.

Rocket Lawyer, the Google-Ventures backed online legal document service, has today launched its On Call programme into the UK, the first step towards the much-anticipated website going live to the public at the end of the year, Legal Futures can report.