The largest of these firms is Cooperative Legal Services, a legal element to the Cooperative group – a trust corporation that is noted primarily for providing supermarket, banking and funeral services. For the first time able to offer legal services to the general public, the firm is licensed to provide litigation, conveyancing and probate services, and plans to expand into the provision of family law services later this year.

The second firm to be licensed by the SRA is John Welch and Stammers, which has used the ABS licence to enable it to appoint their practice manager, a non-lawyer, as a partner in the firm. Lawbridge Solicitors Ltd, the third firm authorised by the SRA, has similarly appointed their practice manager as a director in the company.

The ABS authorisation scheme is expected to provide a platform for the provision of legal services through increasingly innovative business structures, and may prove to be particularly popular with large professional firms of all descriptions. The introduction of non-lawyers to the controlling echelons of legal firms promises to be an interesting experiment in the management and business styles of the modern legal practice.