Legal Services Act

Alternative business structures (ABSs) are unlikely to create a “serious adverse impact” on access to justice, research conducted for the Law Society is to conclude.

The heads of both the Legal Services Board (LSB) and Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) are in the list of those working at quangos who earn more than £150,000, which was released by the Cabinet Office today.

For tech-savvy firms, alternative business structures will highlight the power of partnerships within the conveyancing sector, says David Kempster, marketing director at MDA SearchFlow.

A row is brewing between the Law Society and the Legal Services Consumer Panel over the make-up of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) board, Legal Futures can reveal. The Law Society says it has no intention of taking active steps to remove the solicitor majority on the board until the current members’ terms end in 2013.

The Legal Ombudsman will open on 6 October 2010, it confirmed today. The board of the Legal Ombudsman has agreed to keep to its plans for opening, subject to the Parliamentary timetable. The announcement indicates confidence that the new service will survive scrutiny by the Cabinet committee examining the need for all pending regulations left by the previous government.

The Law Society of Scotland has welcomed MSPs’ decision to regulate non-lawyer will-writers and to give clients access to compensation in the event of dishonesty by alternative business structures.

Many lawyers entered the law to make a difference. Now is their chance, especially at this unique time in the profession’s history, with the Salvation Army set to launch a commercial law firm in Australia, says Scottish solicitor Raymond McLennan. Compulsory pro bono could be the answer.

There has been a slow move to make up barristers as partners in legal disciplinary practices, Legal Futures can reveal. Figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority indicate that just nine barristers have so far become partners.

Consumers do not realise that many of the problems they face are ‘legal’ and so do not consider approaching a lawyer for help, new research has revealed.

The criminal bar needs to transform itself into “fully functioning litigation units” within the next 12 to 24 months if it wants to survive, the chairman of the Bar Council has warned in a paper that sets out his vision for how the bar needs to change to meet the challenges of the Legal Services Act.

Alternative business structures (ABSs) in Scotland are set to need majority ownership of solicitors or other professionals after a vote in the Scottish Parliament yesterday.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has indicated its desire to see the composition of the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority change before the end of the current members’ terms so as to achieve a lay majority.

The chairman of the Legal Services Board has hit back at Law Society criticism of his organisation, and warned that Chancery Lane is creating an unnecessarily complex relationship with the Solicitors Regulation Authority that goes against the recommendations of the Hunt review.

The Coalition government has scotched rumours that it is to scrap alternative business structures (ABSs), Legal Futures can confirm. We further understand that both ABSs and the Office for Legal Complaints are likely to get the green light from the Cabinet committee set up last week to review all upcoming regulation.

Complaints against conveyancers are on the rise, but complaints against personal injury lawyers have fallen dramatically, figures from the Legal Complaints Service have shown.