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Journalists love a good landmark and 6 October is a corker for those of us who get overly excited by legal services reform – the Legal Ombudsman opens today and in a year’s time, the first alternative business structure should open its doors. But is anyone keeping an eye on all the other reform agendas around litigation costs and funding to ensure that access to justice does not fall through the cracks?

Law firms that fail to embrace “legal process management” will quickly lose out to new competitors, such as accounting firms, legal publishers and businesses fuelled by external investment, Professor Richard Susskind has warned. The legal IT and strategy guru has also criticised the approach of many large firms to making cuts during the recession.

Most of what private equity firms know about the law is that it is an old-fashioned industry that does not look very investor friendly. Law firms need to adopt a corporate structure if they want to impress them, experts tell Patricia Wheatley-Burt.