Legal Services Act

Solicitors setting up an alternative business structure this month in Marlborough, Wiltshire, have chosen to be regulated by the Bar Standards Board. It is understood to be the first time a BSB-regulated ABS has been created without barrister involvement.

Deloitte is to become the final member of the Big Four accountancy firms to set up an alternative business structure (ABS), it announced today. It has previously said it would not go down this road due to the number of legal clients it has, but a spokeswoman explained that this position had been kept constantly under review.

Times are tough for claimant personal injury lawyers, but while many expect substantial consolidation in the market over the coming 18 months, competition is becoming fiercer than ever, according to new research. Advertising spend and costs were spiralling upwards both online and on TV as firms look to grab greater shares of the market.

Alternative business structure LegalZoom Legal Services is being sued in the United States as part of a claim that its American parent company is engaged in the unauthorised practice of law, Legal Futures can reveal. California-based LegalForce claims LegalZoom is using ownership of the ABS as a way to offer legal advice in the US.

The UK has its first law firm owned by a hedge fund after Slater & Gordon’s UK operation completed its separation from the Australian parent. The newly independent business has appointed a chief executive in the shape of the former vice-chairman of an American technology company.

A boutique London sports and entertainment law practice has converted to an alternative business structure just three months after launching itself, with the aim of being “nimble” in future. It counts the likes of Usain Bolt, Anthony Joshua and Chris Froome among its clients.

The process of publishing up-front price information should be achieved through “prescriptive templates” across the legal profession, the Legal Ombudsman has suggested. It said publication needed to be more than simply displaying likely prices, stressing the importance of lawyers providing context to their quotes.

Premier League footballers including former Manchester United and England striker Andrew Cole are set to be among high-profile sporting clients of a law firm that has taken investment from a sports and media group after becoming an alternative business structure.

The current framework of legal regulation is “inconsistent”, the Ministry of Justice accepted today, but said it could not commit to the formal review sought by the Competition and Markets Authority and others. It also said it would not take forward the plan to completely separate legal regulators from representative bodies.

‘Silver splitters’ are finding their way to a pioneering online divorce service, which uses divorce coaches instead of lawyers as part of its goal of making the process as painless and low-cost as possible. Amicable App, launched in January this year, has recently raised £473,000 from a range of angel investors.

Only a third of law firms are telling clients who make a complaint that they can refer it to the Legal Ombudsman if they are not satisfied with the outcome, research by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found. The report also revealed limited support among firms for the compulsory publication of first-tier complaints data.

National law firm Simpson Millar is set to make at least 20% of its workforce redundant as part of a restructuring that follows its listed parent company going into administration earlier this year. The firm said the changes were designed “to put in place a sustainable cost base following substantial under-investment under the ownership of Fairpoint Group PLC”.

A law firm has relaunched itself as a multi-disciplinary alternative business structure, offering corporate clients legal, accountancy, and business advisory services, with human resources advice set to follow. Its head said being able to offer SMEs more than legal services was a “unique selling point” in a crowded legal marketplace.

Efficiency innovations implemented by in-house counsel at just five big companies – such as artificially intelligent (AI) contract review – have brought annual savings totalling more than half a million hours of lawyer time, according to new guide. Similar savings were being made by legal departments in thousands of other companies globally, it said, driving change in law firms that have traditionally relied on the work.

One of the two paralegal bodies which developed the Professional Paralegal Register (PPR) to act as a voluntary regulator for the sector, has decided to pull out after only two years, it has emerged. The National Association of Licensed Paralegals withdrew this summer, citing “irreconcilable differences” over the values and purpose of the PPR.