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The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been celebrating the first year of its ABS licensing regime. It is not just a numbers game, but with 74 licences granted in that time and 300-odd still inching their way through the application process, it perhaps hasn’t necessarily been quite as glorious a first year as the SRA is making out – another way of looking at it is that there is a large backlog – but it has certainly been interesting given the range of approvals.

More than 450 firms have started the alternative business structure application process over the past year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed. Having started accepting applications on 3 January 2012, the SRA said that 454 firms have since started the process.

A start-up company aimed at offering small and medium-sized businesses a wide range of legal and non-legal advice has received its alternative business structure (ABS) licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Leading north-west firm Stephensons is seeking external investment as part of its plans to expand beyond the region after receiving its alternative business structure licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Other new licencees include a firm looking at MDPs and one mulling trade union tie-ups.

Three more alternative business structures (ABSs) have been licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, with external investment, an employee share scheme and a non-lawyer partner the drivers behind them.