Kerry Underwood documents the spectacular failure of ABSs
Alternative business structures (ABSs) were put in place to justify an attempt to eradicate lawyers from representing ordinary members of the public. Not surprisingly they have proved to be a spectacular failure, both individually and conceptually.
It will be a central theme of this three-part series on the decline and fall of ABSs that governments of all persuasions, along with civil servants, many academics and the usual suspects in terms of advisers and self-selected consumer spokespeople have wholly misunderstood the role and nature of law and lawyers and the judicial process leading to reforms that have deeply damaged this country and threaten to set it on the road to totalitarianism.
Some observers believe that this is a deliberate and calculated attack on a system (the courts) and a profession (lawyers) who do not do the government’s bidding, whatever the colour of that government. Legal aid cuts are cited as key evidence by the conspiracy theorists. No-one, not even the government, maintains that they are saving money. Apart from the very significant
