The Bar Standards Board (BSB) this week began licensing alternative business structures. While the BSB has been regulating lawyer-only owned entities since 2015, it can now license legal services businesses owned jointly by lawyers and non-lawyers. A new edition of the BSB Handbook, which takes the new arrangements into account, was published this week. BSB director of regulatory assurance Oliver Hanmer said: “We believe this development encourages further innovation in the provision of legal services.”
06 April 2017
ABS at the Bar
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Clarke Willmott—Megan Bradbury
Corporate team welcomes paralegal in Southampton
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Howard Kennedy—Paul Moran
London firm strengthens real estate team with partner appointment
Cripps—Radius Law
Commercial and technology practice boosted by team hire
NEWS
Pathfinder courts—renamed ‘Child focused courts’—are to be rolled out nationally, following a successful pilot where backlogs halved and cases were resolved up to seven and a half months faster
The Court of Appeal has unanimously dismissed a £385,000 costs order against a father, in a case that centred on what is required to meet the threshold of ‘reprehensible or unreasonable’ behaviour
Centuries-old burial laws would be overhauled, under Law Commission proposals to address the burgeoning problem of shortage of cemetery space
The government has committed an extra £32m to women’s charities and services tackling addiction, trauma, abuse and homelessness
The Financial Ombudsman is poised for major reform to return it to a simple, impartial dispute resolution service
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