Alternative Business Structures and Licensed Bodies
Before the coming into force of the Act, lawyers in England and Wales could only practice as:
- Solicitors, as sole traders or in partnerships with other solicitors;
- Barristers, as sole traders; or
- Employees providing legal services to their employer.
The Act allows alternative business structures (ABSs) with non-lawyers in professional, management or ownership roles. The Act creates a system whereby approved regulators can authorise licensed bodies to offer reserved legal services (ss.71-111).
As of March 2008, no date is fixed for the coming into force of these provisions and it has been suggested in the press that such structures are unlikely to be created until 2011 or 2012. Further, the extent to which the Bar Council will permit barristers to become involved in the full range of such structures is, as of March 2008, still unclear.
Read more about this topic: Legal Services Act 2007
Famous quotes containing the words alternative, business, structures and/or bodies:
“If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Emotions have no place in business, unless you do business with them.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)