Practice Management

HMRC is set to scrutinise the status of law firm partners after measures announced in the Budget. The Treasury is to consult on removing the presumption of self-employment for LLP partners and on countering the “artificial allocation of profits to partners”.

The Law Society is to ask members of its Conveyancing Quality Scheme whether they would fund a dedicated advertising campaign, it has emerged. Chief executive Des Hudson raised the possibility at a meeting of the Conveyancing Association last week.

Forty-eight law firms have already signed up to a new business networking tool that helps solicitors capture referrals directly from other professional services and claims to cut out “costly panel managers”.

A new route into the legal profession is launched today in a bid to improve access and diversity in the law. The Level Four Higher Apprenticeship in Legal Services is designed to help firms recruit a new breed of talented paralegals who could in time become chartered legal executives.

A personal injury law firm has launched a co-operative group marketing scheme based on a TV advertising campaign potentially worth up to £2m. eLawyers aims to build regional panels of firms who will receive exclusive leads by area of legal specialism.

An inter-firm diversity initiative is being launched this month to make the legal sector more accessible to lawyers from multi-cultural backgrounds. A number of City firms are already on board with the NOTICED (Networking Opportunities to Integrate, Celebrate and Educate on Diversity) scheme.

A training regime whose only specification is what a newly-qualified lawyer should be able to offer on day one is the kind of deregulation the Legal Education and Training Review should be considering, according to the chief executive of the Legal Services Board.

Barristers should soon be free to give their personal opinions on cases when the rule restricting them to voicing only clients’ views is finally lifted – four years after the change was first mooted. Their regulator said lifting the same ban on solicitors had not caused a problem.

The full distribution remuneration model is on the way out because law firms want to stockpile funds within the business, according to a survey. It is being phased out in favour of a more ‘corporate’ approach to bolster firms’ finances.

Profits per equity partner at the most successful small and medium-sized firms were more than 40 times those of the bottom-earning firms last year, a major study by NatWest has revealed. “It could be observed that the average firm was making virtually no real profit,” it also reported.

Last year was 12 months of unprecedented merger activity in the legal market. Experts are predicting that the trend will continue in 2013 with more mergers as firms seek to stay competitive by increasing their geographic spread or achieve shared critical mass in the marketplace.

Lawyers should offer ‘unbundled’ legal services to the public in order to improve access to the law – and also to compete with online document assembly services like Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom, the American Bar Association has said.

Only a third of large firms who are signed up to a Law Society diversity charter – including three-quarters of the top-100 – have adopted flexible working, which helps explain why their partnerships remain “overwhelmingly white, heterosexual, male and able bodied”, the society’s president has complained.

Consumers believe regulators ensure they have protections when buying legal services – although they don’t really know what they are – and are content to pay extra for them, a survey of users’ perceptions has found. But they also expect lawyers to provide better information about their rights.

Co-operative Legal Services will launch a ‘Learning Academy’ later this year that will offer all staff training for a range of skills and qualifications, including becoming solicitors and chartered legal executives.