After a period of
some frustration over delays, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has approved its
first alternative business structures (ABSs), enabled by the Legal Services Act.
The big name
amongst the first 3 authorisations is Co-operative Legal Services, which for
some time has offered legal services which were not specifically reserved for
solicitors (such as employment law and wills).
Under their new ABS structure, they will be permitted to add litigation
and probate to their service offering, and plan to launch a full range of
consumer legal services, including family law, later this year.
The other two
authorised businesses are much smaller - Lawbridge Solicitors (a Kent based family law
practice) and John Welch and Stammers (a small Oxfordshire practice) . In both cases, the primary motivation for the
switch seems to be to enable non-lawyers who are heavily involved in the
management of the practices to take an equity interest in the businesses.
The SRA continues
to process approximately 60 stage two ABS applications, after initial interest
from almost 180 organisations. It is not
clear at this stage how many of the remaining expressions of interest will
translate into stage 2 applications.
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