Accountant-owned law firm targets Bounce Back Loan clients

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Blanchfield: Different mindset

A law firm bought by an accountant earlier this summer is to launch a national campaign to attract directors involved in disputes over Bounce Back Loans (BBL).

Tom Blanchfield, managing director of Complex Law, said the firm currently had around 50 BBL clients, but with £1bn of loans going into default, he aimed to increase that to between 100 and 500 new cases a month by the end of this year.

Mr Blanchfield said many small businesses that had taken out BBLs were nonetheless forced to close during Covid and afterwards, and the Insolvency Service was now “popping up years after they went into administration” and “aggressively pursuing” the owners.

Clients were being persuaded to “agree that they were unfit to be a director” and should be disqualified, rather than being taken to court. They might think this was the end of the matter, only to find they would be asked a week later to repay the loan.

Mr Blanchfield said he believed there had been a “massive systemic error”, with the government pushing the banks to guarantee BBLs “at speed” on the basis of the businesses’ anticipated, rather than actual, turnover.

He said Complex Law, based in Liverpool, would be using radio advertising over the next two months to expand its activities across the North-West and then nationally.

Complex Law charges a fixed fee of £2,500 plus VAT for handling BBL claims before directors are disqualified and a lower fee afterwards.

Mr Blanchfield said the firm could be receiving anything from 100 to 500 new cases a month by the end of this year. This would mean recruiting five to 10 new staff to add to the existing seven, including three solicitors.

An accountant, he previously worked as finance director of Liverpool consumer claims firm CEL Solicitors, after starting his finance career in the law at Slater & Gordon.

He was considering setting up his own law firm when he was introduced to Paul Smith, founder of a general practice called Smith Jones, based in Burnley, Lancashire. Smith Jones had been an alternative business structure since 2013 and Mr Smith was coming up to retirement age.

Having looked at a few other firms, Mr Blanchfield, aged 34 at the time, agreed to acquire 95% of the shares in the law firm, with Mr Smith retaining 5% and remaining a partner.

The purchase was approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority earlier this summer, and Smith Jones was renamed, rebranded and given a new website.

Mr Blanchfield said that, towards the end of its time, many of the old firm’s claims had related to solar panels, but Complex Law turned its attention to other types of claim, buying a professional negligence practice with 100 cases earlier this month and before that a Japanese knotweed practice with 60 cases.

One of the firm’s main areas was helping clients recover money after online and offline fraud and scams.

Mr Blanchfield added: “I’ve got a different mindset to most people in the industry, because I’m not a solicitor. I come from a financial background, but I’m very commercially aware.

“I look at things not through the lens of being a solicitor, but thinking about what a law firm in 2024 should be like to attract people of my age and younger.”