The UK legal market is changing at the rate of knots following the introduction of ABSs (alternative business structures). From the perspective of an Australian lawyer, it is astonishing, particularly as the similar deregulation introduced with the various Legal Profession Acts in 2004/05, resulted in very little change in the Australian legal market, other than Slater and Gordon being the first publicly listed law firm. And Slaters were one of the first to take advantage of the UK deregulation, acquiring Russell Jones & Walker. Other recent UK developments include:
Riverview Law, a venture part owned by DLA Phillips Fox partners, offers fixed fee legal services from both solicitors and barristers (including QCs). Riverview advertise that they have lowered costs by changing the business model, reducing overheads and relying heavily on technology, including workflows and business systems. Last week it announced it was opening in the US to service clients with UK legal needs.
Stobart Barristers - offers direct briefing of counsel with a panel of 1000 barristers. This is the most unusual newcomer to date, as it has been established by a haulage group, Eddie Stobart Lorries. It arose out of the company's legal team's experience in direct briefing.
With both direct briefing arrangements, it will be interesting to see what work barristers will accept. It is unlikely that many would be enthusiastic about have the day to day conduct of litigation, and it appears the UK Bar rules would prevent this in any event. Having said that, the Stobart website indicates they will accept direct briefs in family law, personal injury, debt recovery and medical negligence, amongst other work.
The Victorian and NSW Bar have been proactively seeking direct briefing work over recent years. However, feedback from corporate lawyers indicates this is often less than successful, with some counsel being very demanding about what their role is and requiring so much support from in-house counsel as to no longer make the arrangement cost effective. Other barristers have been quite restrictive in the sort of work where they will accept a direct brief. However, engagement of junior barristers for discovery review is increasingly common as a cost effective alternative to junior solicitors.
Also interesting is Legal Zoom - this is a US based online legal documentation service which has filed for an IPO of up to $120 million, and proposes to enter the UK and other world legal markets. 490,000 orders for legal documents were placed with the site in 2011. It's hard to argue that this doesn't impact the legal market.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts downunder.
