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The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is in “serious discussions” with just 15 potential alternative business structures (ABSs), it has emerged. According to the SRA, six different types of organisation have so far shown official interest in becoming ABSs.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to roll out supervision of large City and national law firms through relationship management after a successful pilot. The year-long pilot also highlighted outsourcing as an issue to which the SRA needs to pay particular attention.

The “inexcusable delay” in enabling the Solicitors Regulatory Authority to start licensing alternative business structures could make private investors think twice about entering the legal sector, the Legal Futures conference heard this week.

The legal education and training review, commissioned by the three main frontline legal regulators in November 2010, may not produce its final report until some point in 2013, it has emerged. Meanwhile, the academic body contracted to provide research has shut down, but the work will continue.

There is an interesting game of pass the parcel going on over referral fees right now – made more interesting by the fact that the parcel is ticking loudly. The Ministry of Justice wants paying referral fees to be a regulatory offence, while the regulators want it to be a criminal offence – nobody wants the blame when the ban proves impossible to enforce.