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19 February 2009 / Linda Packard
Issue: 7357 / Categories: Features , Legal services , Wills & Probate , Other practice areas
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New Order

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Is there a future for the probate practitioner? asks Linda Packard

Probate is becoming an overcrowded market. There are many new entrants into legal services and in particular this sector of the market. These new “Tesco Law” competitors are expected to use their branding, existing channels to the retail market, IT capabilities and economies of scale to take significant market share away not only from small high street law firms but also the regional players. It is expected that in the wake of the current credit crisis up to 3,000 firms will have disappeared.

Trust corporations, traditionally owned by the banks have been around for a long time. New entrants are using this structure combined with, in most cases a powerful consumer brand to enter the market. These commercially astute entrants see this market as a site and with the muscle of corporate financing and support, start trading with a “white sheet of paper” and most importantly no embedded attitudes to delivering the service. This gives them the opportunity to introduce

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Sponsored by
Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Partner joinscorporate and finance practice in British Virgin Islands

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Firm strengthens children department with adoption and surrogacy expert

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Media and technology expert joins employment team as partner in Cambridge

NEWS
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A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
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Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
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A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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