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Big four accountancy firm PwC is to explore whether to absorb its associated law firm and become an alternative business structure. Legal services is the one area of the firm’s work where it is not able to operate as a totally integrated practice.

The ambitions of larger firms of accountants to offer legal services have become more complicated after the European Commission announced plans to stop auditors offering non-audit services. If it becomes law, the move will lead to the break-up of the ‘big four’ accountants into audit and consultancy businesses.

Among the many things that the Legal Services Act has done is revive the idea of multi-disciplinary practices (MDPs), thought dead after the Enron scandal a decade ago and compounded in the US by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It is often forgotten that there was no MDP actually involved in Enron.

In the second instalment of our new Legal Pioneers series, we profile Parabis, which currently operates as a co-operative of different insurance-related regulated companies. When the Legal Services Act goes lives, however, integration of legal and non-legal functions and external investment are on the horizon.

The Law Society has begun laying down the red lines beyond which it will not be able to support alternative business structures (ABSs), Legal Futures can reveal. The society’s regulatory affairs board has highlighted a variety of issues that it expects to see addressed if it is to judge the arrangements for ABSs satisfactory, including effective controls on the fitness to own of prospective external owners.