SRA finally gives the green light to Duke Street/Parabis

After many months of waiting, Parabis Group has finally obtained approval from the SRA to become an alternative business structure - the first private-equity backed firm to take up the business model.

Private equity firm Duke Street agreed last year to invest in Parabis, which owns Plexus Law and Cogent Law, but it has been a long drawn out process to obtain regulatory consents to the transaction. The SRA has attracted some criticism for the time delays in issuing licences since the new regime began in January, although over the summer there has been some pick-up in the rate of authorisations, with 20 approvals now having been granted.  The Parabis transaction, being the first time the SRA had had to consider a private equity backed structure, was always going to attract close scrutiny, but Duke Street will be happy now to be able to move on to the next phase.  

The licence now gives the green light to the group to start pursuing the group's buy-and-build strategy.  it is understood that Parabis Chief Executive Tim Oliver is already in discussions with a number of firms, and hopes to complete at least one transaction during 2012.  The longer term aim is to have its law firm business sitting amongst the UK top 20 firms, but also to transform the wider business into a full scale business process outsourcer. 

First Multi-Disciplinary ABS Approved

After a long wait, the SRA has approved the first multi-disciplinary alternative business structure (ABS), with London property company Crabtree Property Management receiving a licence to establish a fixed-fee property litigation firm.

Crabtree, which was established in 1983, currently manages in excess of 17,000 properties across London and the south of England, including residential properties, retail units and offices.

James Naylor, who has been the Crabtree's in-house lawyer for two years, will become head of legal practice and the firm's sole legal adviser, which is presumably indicative of the fact that the focus will be on servicing litigation arising from the company’s managed portfolio, rather than soliciting instructions from other property owners or managers.  Running a property management portfolio involves a reasonably regular incidence of low-level litigation to deal with tenancy issues and dilapidation disputes etc, and therefore there is a clear logic for a company which has a significant number of properties under management to be able to handle the litigation arising from it, avoiding a degree of duplication of effort and cost.

Maclay Murray & Spens revert to traditional roots with Law at Work sale

Law At Work (LAW), the fixed fee employment law and health & safety consultancy owned by Scottish law firm Maclay Murray & Spens (MMS) has been sold in a management buy-out.

The MBO was led by Magnus Swanson, who was the chief executive of MMS until June 2011, and who retired from the firm in May of this year.  He is LAW's chairman, and one of the three shareholders (the others being Chief Executive Jane Wright and director of legal services Donald McKinnon).

The acquisition price has not been disclosed, but it is understood that the MBO was backed by HSBC.

LAW employs 30 staff, and has a turnover just in excess of £1.5m, and it is not expected that there will be any job losses following the MBO.

LAW was one of the early trailblazers in the field of fixed fee employment law services for employers, having been established in 2001.  Although the concept of offering an all-inclusive fixed fee service at a price guaranteed for three years is now not so revolutionary, at the time it was a real departure for a law firm which had traditionally charged on a time spent basis.  However, it appears that MMS may be returning to its more traditional roots, as it is reported as saying that the sale of the business follows a comprehensive strategic review, following which is was decided to withdraw from commodity-based services.  MMS also sold its corporate advisory arm Regulatory Solutions to the IMS Group as a consequence of the strategic review.