Legal Services Act

The Legal Services Consumer Panel today ratcheted up the pressure on regulators to impose transparency requirements on lawyers with survey findings that only 6% of consumers could find prices on their websites. The panel’s annual tracker survey described a sector “which is slow to respond to consumer need”.

The alternative to Slater & Gordon’s proposed recapitalisation is insolvency, the company has told creditors and shareholders as it seeks approval of the plan, which would see the debt of the newly separate UK arm slashed. However, shareholders would see their ownership of the company almost wiped out.

A niche law firm referral network set up last year by Peterborough solicitors has increased its members from 30 to 245. Duncan Jackson, head of BUCKLESconnect, said the network specialised in French and Spanish law, and acted as an “international department” for many member firms.

Warwickshire County Council has become the latest local authority to launch an alternative business structure to expand the work it already does for other public bodies. Unlike some of the other local authority ABSs, this is not a case of the entire legal department transferring into the new business.

Obelisk Support – the outsourcing company that uses former City solicitors to provide temporary support services to in-house teams and law firms – is eyeing up its first international office after it was the only legal business to join London Mayor Sadiq Khan on a trade mission to Paris.

There needs to be a “more diverse and innovative legal services market” in England and Wales that attracts new providers and offers new opportunities “for the current and future legal profession”, the Lord Chancellor has said. David Lidington also hinted that further regulatory reform was still on the agenda.

Law firms are facing a “pivotal moment” where they need to turn talk of improving efficiency into action, with those that are seeing the competitive advantage, new research has claimed. It said firms “appear to be in a holding pattern, pledging forward-looking action, while cleaving to traditional thinking”, such as hourly billing.

The Legal Ombudsman has to improve its performance, the chief ombudsman admitted yesterday as its annual report showed that it lagged badly on the speed with which it dealt with complaints. However, user satisfaction with the service – the proxy used for quality – was well above target, although it fell significantly on the year before.

The government is planning to create a UK-wide £650m “legal services marketplace” from which the public sector will procure commercial legal services, it has emerged. It will cover central government departments and their associated bodies, including the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, along with the wider public sector.

A barrister whose charity, regulated as a law firm by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), was dissolved at the end of last year due to funding problems, has set up both a conventional BSB firm and a pioneering university law project to help immigration detainees.

LGSS Law, the ‘social enterprise’ alternative business structure owned by three local authorities, is set expand dramatically by merging with the shared legal team of Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. The two councils envisaged costs savings through less use of external lawyers and bringing in additional income.

“Fundamental market change is on the horizon” for the largest law firms in the country, with the possibilities of technology the driving factor and new business structures and external capital needed to accommodate them, the annual law firm report by PwC has concluded.

NAHL, the marketing business that owns National Accident Helpline, has created its second alternative business structure (ABS) licence in partnership with national law firm Lyons Davidson. The ABS will trade under the name National Law Partners and it is expected to begin operating in November 2017.

Metamorph Law, the alternative business structure looking to consolidate small law firms, has made a south-west conveyancing law firm its fourth and biggest acquisition of the year so far. It has taken over BPL Solicitors, a firm with revenues in excess of £5m and staff of around 100, based in offices in Dorchester, Bristol and Bournemouth.

Beaumont ABS – the alternative business structure owned by US giant LegalZoom – has said it is heading towards a “sizeable” profit next year after its first accounts showed a £2.1m loss. This was due to a significant and planned-for investment after it bought Wakefield law firm Beaumont Legal in early 2016 for £6.4m.