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The recent debate on the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) plans to regulate advocacy-focused business structures – entities – pitted Bar Council old-timers against BSB modernists, and it was the latter who came out on top. The motion was bland enough but it soon became clear that what its proposers actually meant by this was “entities will open the door to solicitors flooding (and eventually taking over) the Bar’s institutions and that by inviting solicitor-advocates into its regulatory ‘tent’, the BSB will weaken the distinctiveness of the barristers’ offering”.

Alternative business structures cannot be viewed as law firms and will not be allowed to operate in France, the body representing the 179 French bar associations has said. They claimed ABSs conflict with lawyers’ independence.

A groundbreaking project that aims to encourage students to think about innovation in the post-alternative business structure world – and help them develop new ideas for delivering legal services – has been launched by Sheffield Hallam University.

The cost of practising as a solicitor will rise well above inflation this year, mainly to ensure the Law Society has the funds to compensate the victims of fraud, but also to make up the cost of IT project overruns.

Three of the seven ABSs so far approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority have been granted waivers as part of their applications, it has emerged. It also warned applicants who may have tight timescales for approval that it will not guarantee to meet them.