Williams and Susskind on board as buy-out house targets legal big bang
Friday, March 28th, 2008
According to Legal Week, Lyceum Capital has become the first investment house to openly target legal services as the private equity firm moves to position itself ahead of sweeping deregulation of the UK profession.
The buy-out house has also appointed a senior advisory panel to seal its credentials, including former Clifford Chance managing partner Tony Williams, high-profile legal IT consultant Richard Susskind and Paul Hewitt, who was instrumental in developing legal services arms at the RAC and Co-operative Group.
The venture, revealed today by Legal Week, is being overseen by Lyceum’s managing partner, Jeremy Hand (pictured), the incoming chairman of the BVCA — private equity’s main industry body.
Lyceum is to target opportunities from the Legal Services Act (LSA) by investing in mid-tier firms to help fund their growth, including taking minority and full controlling stakes.
With the help of the panel, Lyceum, which has just announced its latest £255m fund, will look for potential investment targets and give business advice in addition to funding.
Hand told Legal Week: “Law firms are businesses. We are not pretending we are lawyers but we can help businesses develop — whether through giving advice, overhauling IT systems or allowing them to grow with new hires.”
Click here to read the original article
Richard Cohen, Joint CEO of Epoq Legal responded by saying:
‘This is a clear demonstration of where the legal services market is going and it is interesting to see the emphasis on helping law firms to develop as businesses. We have certainly seen a change in the way some firms think about their relationships with their clients and are increasingly finding that firms want to add web and phone based services to supplement the traditional face-to-face delivery model. Firms that adopt these new engagement models will have a huge competitive advantage and the fact that the chairman of the BVCA is heading up a team to invest in this sector shows that there is a great opportunity to exploit the changes in the legal services market’.
Loading ...