Jonathon Bray discusses ABS authorisation pain points
The history of alternative business structures (ABSs) starts in March 2001 when the Office of Fair Trading produced a report that recommended that unjustified restriction on competition should be removed. The government consultation paper and report on the legal services market that followed concluded the framework was outdated, inflexible and too complicated.
Sir David Clementi was appointed in July 2003 to carry out an independent review of the regulatory framework for legal services. One of the recommendations of his report was the establishment of ABSs that could see different types of lawyers and non-lawyers managing and owning legal practices.
The government accepted the majority of Clementi’s recommendations and in May 2006 published its draft bill, including ABSs.
What eventually followed was the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007) that received Royal Assent on 30 October 2007. LSA 2007 also established the Legal Services Board (LSB) to implement the Act, and the Office for Legal Complaints, now better known as the Legal Ombudsman.
Approval to license ABS applications was granted on 23 December 2011 and the first applications were
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