Tag Archives: external ownership

Market structure: continuing growth in the solicitors’ profession

Posted on by

The Law Society of England & Wales recently published its Annual Statistics Report for 2021, its compendium and analysis of useful numbers about the trends in the solicitors profession.  (In fact, it is the second report published this year, the 2020 report having been delayed by the Covid pandemic.)

I have followed these reports for many years, charting the ups and downs in the trends.  I was therefore brought up short by this comment by the President of the Law Society, as reported in Legal Futures: “The decline in the number of firms also highlights the need for widespread investment in our justice system including legal aid rates to ensure lawyers are there when needed.”

The reason that I. Stephanie Boyce’s comment grabbed my attention is that the two elements of the sentence (decline and need for public investment) do not on the face of it appear to be supported by the data or even connected.  Some further digging into the report and other sources was called for. Continue reading →

Is the BigLaw business model sustainable?

Posted on by

This is the question that I was recently given five minutes to answer! This post is intended as a more expanded response. It begs some prior questions about what we mean by ‘BigLaw’, ‘business model’ and ‘the BigLaw business model’. But [spoiler alert] the short and long answers are the same: it doesn’t look like it.

Continue reading →

Sweet ’16? Cakes, deckchairs and running fast

Posted on by
(An edited version of this post first appeared in The Times‘s The Brief on 8 January 2016)

As 2015 slides inexorably into 2016, we can ponder what differences this might bring to the world of legal services. The sands are definitely shifting, and the foundations of ‘old law’ continue to crumble as ‘new law’ takes greater hold. Let me explore three themes: demand, supply, and independence.

Continue reading →