Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
More Big Ripples From
Across the Pond
The signs are legion that the <strong>Legal</strong> Services Act of 2007 (sometimes
referred to herein as The Act)--which did not take effect until October,
2011-- is evincing a major impact upon the UK legal market and beyond.
Scores of firms have secured licensure as “Alternative Business
Structures”, enabling them to raise capital as well as share profits with
non-lawyers, engage in inter-disciplinary practice, and confer equity
upon non-lawyers who are increasingly becoming key contributors.
The Act has spawned a more client-centric approach to the delivery of
legal services that extends from High Street (retail) firms to the Magic
Circle. Most of all, the proliferation of new models and heightened
competition has rendered legal service providers subject to the same
expectations of efficiency, transparency, and value as other businesses.
The repercussions of the Act are being felt far beyond the UK domestic
market. This blog has previously considered the forays of white-shoe
law firm Cahill Gordon and IT/document powerhouse <strong>Legal</strong> Zoom into
ABS licensure (the former through its UK LLP). But the migration
to the UK and the lure of operating in its re-regulated ABS environment
has cast a far wider net than these two prominent US providers.
Three of the BigFour accounting firms now have ABS licenses, and
firms from around the globe including Australian-based Slaters-- the
first law firm in the world to launch an IPO (2007 in Australia) are
operating there too.
The UK legal marketplace is swingin’ (though not in the same way that
produced “The British Invasion” and Carnaby Street), in part because
of the Act and also due to London’s emergence as the economic capital
not only of the UK but also, arguably, the world. Is it any wonder then,
that the UK has established itself as the epicenter of innovation in the
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