New Law Means Supermarkets Can Provide Full Legal Services
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October 6, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
Banks and supermarkets will now be able to sell legal advice in England and Wales after a change in law today.
Banks and supermarkets will now be able to provide full legal advice in England and Wales after the New Legal Services Act was passed today. Businesses will now be able to apply for an Alternative Business Structure (ABS), which will entitle businesses to provide full legal services.
Critics have called dubbed the law ‘Tesco law’, although Tesco have stated they have no plans to provide legal services. However, Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said it was a “landmark day” for the legal industry.
“Our legal services are already rated among the best in the world, used by millions of people around the globe as well as in the UK, and these changes will set them up to move to new heights. They will enable firms to set up multi-disciplinary practices and provide opportunities for growth. Potential customers will find legal services become more accessible, more efficient and more competitive,” he said.
Legislation and regulation has restricted ownership, management and financing of firms providing legal services for hundreds of years, but this will now change. Some solicitors have said the law will result in a drop of legal standards. The Solicitor Sole Practitioners Group has launched an online petition to stop the Alternative Business Structure legislation.
The Cooperative are a membership organisation, and because of this they were already able to offer limited legal services to their members, but the new Legal Services Act means they will be able to apply for an Alternative Business Structure allowing them to offer full legal services.
A spokesperson for the Cooperative told The Fresh Outlook that they will be applying, to improve on their limited legal services: “The Cooperative already employs over 300 professionally trained people in Bristol. We will now be looking at different ways in how we can deliver those services.
“We have got a pilot scheme running at the moment where we are offering limited legal services through 30 Cooperative bank branches. We are going to be applying through the Solicitors Regulation Authority, but at the moment they aren’t geared up to take our application so there will be a delay until we can apply for an ABS.”
The spokesperson for the Cooperative told The Fresh Outlook that the planned legal service would not be based within Cooperative food stores: “You are not going to go into your local Co-op store and see a lawyer in there offering legal services it’s not going to happen like that. We’re going to try and promote these services through the Cooperative Bank.”
By Ben Perks
[Image courtesy of Kaihsu Tai]
