Legal Consulting
A spectrum of legal talent including lawyers, paralegals and legal operations professionals
The Legal Services Act 2007 is UK law that seeks to liberalise and regulate the market for legal services in England and Wales, to encourage more competition and to provide a new route for consumer complaints. The main focus is to provide more competition in the provision of legal services.
According to the Act, there are certain activities which are “reserved” to solicitors (and in some cases other authorised, regulated persons like barristers or licensed conveyancers).
These are:
the exercise of a right of audience (i.e. the right to act as an advocate in court);
the conduct of litigation;
conveyancing;
probate activities;
notarising; and
the administration of oaths.
We do not conduct any of these reserved activities directly in-house. We directly provide legal advice in non-contentious commercial, employment and intellectual property matters, which is not an activity reserved to solicitors. We provide professional services to people, businesses and other organisations around any legal obligations or issues that they may need to be aware of. We provide legal advice by thoroughly investigating the sector that our client operates in, including drafting of legal documents.
However, from time to time we may refer some of our clients to affiliated solicitor firms across England and Wales. All our affiliated firms are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Any solicitor we refer you to is an independent professional, from whom you will receive impartial and confidential advice. You are free to choose another solicitor.
Our legal consultants may have expertise in a particular field, but this isn’t always the case. Due to their skills and expertise, a legal consultant can represent a company on an ongoing basis and ensure that a business or organisation is in line with all of the current laws and regulations.
Legal consultants are an efficient and affordable way for businesses and in some cases their legal teams to get the assistance they need on an ad-hoc basis.
We can run leaner as a legal consultancy
Practicing as a regulated law firm requires the annual payment of various contributions (including a proportion of the relevant practice’s turnover) to the Law Society and/or the Solicitors Regulation Authority. It also increases insurance costs by a significant factor (regardless of whether or not you conduct the reserved activities set out above) and requires management time to be dedicated to prescribed regulatory administration.
By keeping our running and administrative costs down, we are able to pass on the benefit of savings to our clients and provide our services at a much more competitive rate than solicitors providing the same services.
Bar Council Licensed access
We are licensed by the Bar Council (Bar Standards Board) to instruct barristers directly, on behalf of our clients, for advice and for representation in all courts and tribunals in England and Wales, and for arbitration, adjudication, and mediation.
