Tag Results

An international finance and technology law practice involved in the online gaming and electronic payments industries, has become an alternative business structure to help its plans to grow as a group and set up offices across the European Union.

The first local authority alternative business structure to be given a licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has been taken over by the second. Lawyers at Buckinghamshire County Council have joined HB Public Law, making it the largest local authority legal team in the country.

Rather than feeling threatened by accountants’ move into legal services, law firms should set up alternative business structures (ABS) and compete with them, the president of the Law Society has said. Jonathan Smithers said: “The success of ABS to date indicates that clients are generally not concerned about sourcing their legal services from non-lawyers.”

The co-founder of Britain’s only trade union-owned alternative business structure (ABS) has warned high street lawyers that there is nothing to stop it competing with them. He also expressed concern that the profession was becoming obsessed with profit at the expense of the client.

A Canadian report on alternative business structures has issued a cautious verdict on majority non-lawyer ownership, judging the model to be as yet unproven, based on the experience so far in England and Wales and Australia.