Legal Services Act update
We are now only about 10 weeks away from the 6th October and the key date when non lawyers should be able to provide legal services as Alternative Business Structures. The Solicitors Regulation Authority, who are expected to be a key regulator of ABS under the Act have recently announced that due to parliamentary delays they will not be ready to regulate bodies by the 6 October.
The Council of Licenced Conveyancers are expected to be ready to act as a regulator and are already receiving applications from bodies wishing to be ABS’.
It will be interesting to see if the CLC’s gain may be the SRA’s loss or whether there will be differing levels of regulation once the SRA declare themselves ready.
A report published recently by accountants H W Fisher found that 36% of SME firms that they surveyed did not think that they would be affected by the Legal Services Act. Only 11% of firms have considered trying to raise external capital. The full report can be found here: http://www.hwfisher.co.uk/uploadedfiles/newsitems/SMELegalPracticesSurvey2011.pdf
See if you are ready for the Legal Services Act and how you compare to other firms by taking our own survey.
HighStreetLawyer.com as a consumer brand
Since January we have been referring work to the firms who have piloted our scheme with us. As the number of firms we talk to increases and as we settle into the second half of this year, our consumer campaign is set to intensify. We are currently working on a number of collaboration agreements with introducers of legal work including legal comparison sites and non lawyer retailers and referrers.
The referral debate
The outgoing Law Society president announced just before the end of her term of office that the Ministry of Justice should consider banning referral fees. Referral fees are an ongoing bone of contention amongst solicitors who would prefer not to pay a third party for introducing work. However, there is a huge difference between paying a third or more of your fee simply for the introduction of work that may or may not complete and outsourcing your marketing, customer care and some due diligence to another organisation. Such fees are now an accepted part of the legal industry and as shown since our launch in January are not of concern to solicitors or to clients provided the value that they add to a matter is transparently explained and provided that all parties comply with the relevant codes.
HighStreetLawyer.com as an umbrella group
We now have a number of preferred supplier arrangements in place for various services and are working on many more.
We have partnered with leading Genealogy company Finders. Finders provide a number of services to solicitors and to the public including a missing wills and missing beneficiary service as well as specialist probate insurance and advice on potential bona vacantia cases where the State stands to inherit unclaimed estates. Finders offer significant discounts to HSL members for all of their services. HSL members are eligible to become panel firms for the referral of legal cases.
Jennings Costs lawyers provide a bespoke service to solicitors in debt collection matters both where firms are chasing their own clients for fees and where firms wish to outsource debt recovery work to a specialist firm. Jennings also provide costs drafting services, which are discounted to HSL members.
Follow us
You can follow us on twitter @highstlawyer and linkedin. Over the next few weeks, our MD Gary Yantin will be in Bournemouth, Southampton, Croydon, all over London, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham. Any firm interested in finding out more about HighStreetLawyer.com should email gary@highstreetlawyer.com for an appointment.
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