The two faces of the law
Chrissie Lightfoot argues that the two dominant umbrella business models coming to the fore in legal services can be summed up as “Face to Face” and “Interface”. She says the emergence of a legal franchising model such as face2face solicitors offers a real opportunity for entrepreneurial lawyers to embrace both.
Phone hacking “highlights risks law firms run” when using unregulated private eyes
Many law firms engage private investigators, but the phone hacking scandal illustrates the risk they run by hiring unregulated people, says Tony Immosi, president of the Association of British Investigators.
Getting to grips with COLPs and COFAs
Frank Maher, a partner at Liverpool law firm Legal Risk LLP, outlines the new requirements on law firms to appoint compliance officers and the difficult issues they raise for practices in choosing who to appoint and the extent of the role.
Legal Pioneers: Parabis – the innovative group eyeing up private equity investment
In the second instalment of our new Legal Pioneers series, we profile Parabis, which currently operates as a co-operative of different insurance-related regulated companies. When the Legal Services Act goes lives, however, integration of legal and non-legal functions and external investment are on the horizon.
Legal Pioneers: MTA Solicitors – the most diverse legal practice in the UK?
Legal Pioneers is a major new Legal Futures series profiling innovative legal services providers. In the first instalment, Neil Rose travels to Bromley in Kent to visit MTA Solicitors, which has three different legal practices, a shopping centre store, and nine (soon to be 10) other ancilliary businesses.
