The Legal Services Act report
For those of you that do not know, the Government passed The Legal Services Act in 2007, this is a major piece of legislation that is set to have a huge effect on the legal landscape.
Over the next 18 months, the scope of these changes are going forever alter the way consumers perceive and access legal services.
An in depth new report was recently published by Intendance Research in conjunction with LPA Legal Recruitment and Thomson Sweet & Maxwell, that (unsurprisingly to us) predicts the Legal Services Act will cause major upheaval in the legal profession.
The survey found that 58% of solicitors and 41% of barristers now think that high street law firms will be “drastically” affected by the reforms. According to 60% of solicitors surveyed, high street law firms will be a “rarity” by 2015.
The intro on their site goes on to say “By allowing non-lawyers to own law firms, the LSA exposes high street firms to competition from all-comers, especially those with well-established brands, hence the coining of the term ‘Tesco Law’ to describe its wide-reaching influence. With their superior media exposure, IT capabilities, and existing retail muscle, supermarkets, among others, could grab a major slice of the market.”
To see more about this report and some tasty snippets visit Brave New World report website.
You can also read more detail in their PDF overview Brave New World report overview -PDF.
One of our services gets a mention in it downloadable PDF and the survey anticipates that some law firms will find a way to compete in this market place with the adoption of the right IT, this was predicted prior to our MyLawyer offering (which is still in stealth mode), I’ll talk more about that in another post.