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The Bar is “out of step” with fellow regulators over its operation of the criminal standard of proof in its disciplinary tribunal, a Bar Standards Board meeting in London was told yesterday, potentially causing problems with the admissibility of regulators’ disciplinary findings in the post-ABS world. Meanwhile, the board also argued about the strength of the disciplinary sanction for failing to meet continuing professional development requirements.

Legal services is one of the markets most failing UK consumers, with bankers and insurers among those doing a better job, pioneering European Union research has revealed. Lawyers are just ahead of second-hand car salesmen, however. The Legal Services Consumer Panel has branded the results “embarrassing” and said lawyers will have to up their game significantly if they are to resist competition from alternative business structures.

A Gazette article caught my eye today, entitled “Solicitors believe ABSs will create ‘more opportunity’”, writes Duncan Finlyson. It is the latest bizarre and illogical instalment in the plan to delude everyone into believing that alternative business structures are not a threat but an opportunity.

The Legal Ombudsman service needs to work out the limits of its jurisdiction “and quickly”, as new business models emerge, chief ombudsman Adam Sampson has said. Mr Sampson said that with the pace of legal services reform accelerating and the legal services market “rapidly moving away from a reliance on the high street solicitor” and towards new providers entering the market “with very different business models”, it is very important to consumers that LeO is clear about what is and is not within its jurisdiction.

The first of a series of extracts from Climate Change, a report on the impact of the Legal Services Act published by accountants Baker Tilly, considers what kinds of law firms and investors will be interested in taking advantage of alternative business structures. And just what would a big law firm do with a £50m cash injection?