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Regulators of alternative business structures could expose consumers to risk if they demand an overly high standard of proof in disciplinary hearings, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has warned. Meanwhile, the Bar Standards Board is to consider switching to a civil standard of proof.

A former major in the Army has launched a brokerage for alternative business structures, bidding to put law firms together with private equity investors. He predicts that it will be commoditised practices run along corporate lines that will most likely attract external investment.

New consumer research from the Solicitors Regulation Authority has strengthened the case for stringent controls of law firms and alternative business structures which seek to hive off unreserved legal work to an unregulated business.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ bid to license alternative business structures could allow firms to dodge regulation of their unreserved legal work, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has warned.

Sole practitioners are set to requisition a special general meeting of the Law Society and a postal vote of all solicitors in a bid to overturn Chancery Lane’s support for alternative business structures (ABSs) and wreck the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s application to become an ABS regulator, Legal Futures can reveal.