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Time for a new model?

16 March 2012 / David Greene
Issue: 7505 / Categories: Opinion , Legal services , Profession
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Has the partnership model had its day? David Greene reports

Way back in 2007, the main change perpetrated by the Legal Services Act seemed to be a shake-up in regulation of solicitors overseen by the Legal Services Board (LSB). One would hardly have considered at the time that other provisions of the Legal Services Act were going to set the world alight. The latest piece in the Legal Services Act jigsaw, however, the creation of alternative business structures (ABSs), may yet convert the Act into the legal service’s “big bang.”

A brief history

The Legal Services Act 2007 brought changes in three areas of practice.
 

  • First, it created the LSB to oversee the regulation of legal services by approved regulators such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board. When the Council for Licensed Conveyancers also secured a licence from the LSB, it was thought that perhaps competition between regulators might open up the market. That may well happen in the future, but the changes thus far
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

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Writing in NLJ this week, Thomas Rothwell and Kavish Shah of Falcon Chambers unpack the surprise inclusion of a ban on upwards-only rent reviews in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
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