Co-op offers legal services through bank branches
The Co-operative has this week become the first high street bank to offer legal advice to its customers.
The Co-operative Group, the UK's largest mutual business, has begun a pilot scheme to deliver legal advice through three Bristol-based branches of Britannia.
The initiative is being pioneered by The Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) and its sister organisation The Co-operative Financial Services.
Over the next fortnight customers will be offered free legal advice, on a 'drop in' or appointment basis.
The results of the pilot will then be analysed to inform CLS’s future strategy.
The Co-operative Group set up its legal service arm in 2006, with a target of employing 150 people within the next five years, but has grown to employ more than 380 staff, who offer legal help and advice on personal injury claims, will writing, probate and estate administration, conveyancing and employment law.
The group is considering the possibility of acquiring law firms as well as offering legal services through its branches, when the law changes in October 2011 to allow it.
CLS managing director Eddie Ryan said: ‘Later this year the Legal Services Act will radically change the way in which solicitor services are delivered in England and Wales.’
Ryan said the ‘shake-up’ was necessary to make legal services more accessible to customers, many of whom feel that solicitors communicate with them poorly, use confusing jargon and do not understand how services are priced.
He said: ‘We believe that the presence of the Co-operative’s trusted brand in the market place, together with our combination of first class products and services, provides customers with both greater accessibility and better value for money.’
Retail managing director at CFS Rob Bulmer added: ‘There are more than 300 branches of Britannia and The Co-operative Bank across the UK, so this pilot scheme will enable us to assess how legal services can be delivered on the high street.’
‘If successful, there is clearly great potential to bring these services under one roof,’ he said.
Comments
350 Co-op branches, 500
350 Co-op branches, 500 QualitySolicitors/WHSmith branches - if anyone really still believes the LSA is going to have minimal impact they are out of their mind!
Of course things are going to
Of course things are going to change, but don't forget that Co-op have already been offering legal services for the last 5 years so that is nothing new just larger scale.
HERE IT COMES, THE BIG CHANGE
Retrain now you may get a managers possition in Mcd's who are incidently looking to give legal advice to their customers as well.......!
Why did I choose such an unstable path........sigh.....
calm....before.. the what now?
It'll be interesting to see if they want to be regulated by the SRA or choose one of the others.
for that list a mixture of unregulated and CLC would do.
anybody wonder if we'd be better of just surrendering our practising certificates en masse and doing only non-reserved work?
best to all fighting the good fight.
You 'aving a larf? Of course
You 'aving a larf?
Of course they won't want to be regulated by the SRA.
Having said which, the SRA won't be such a pain to them as to normal firms-they would lose in any contretemps. "Follow the money" was the phrase, methinks.
As has been proved with the
As has been proved with the banks, once you are big enough, you tell the regulator what to do, not the other way round. It will be exactly the same with the SRA-they want to keep their well paid jobs and will give the big boys exactly what they want whilst cracking down on the small fry to prove they are doing something. The FSA all over again -an utterly morally corrupt system!
My Principle has just..
signed up to a solicitors comparison website "google this" and within an hour received his first case.
When I asked him how much this service was he laughed and said "£365 for a year.
So that first case has just paid for a years supply of work.
Its nice to see then, that there are still a few alternatives out there that do work when generating new clients for us solicitors
BTW, anyone know if it is
BTW, anyone know if it is true that the same guy who designed the FSA's "results based" system is the one who designed it for the SRA-naturally there is no information on the SRA website.
Perfect storm
What a fisco:-
* TUC attacks on earnings
* Asil Nadir possibly obtaining legal aid http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13686807
* Attacks from the left and right
* The introduction of ABS
It looks like solicitors have few friends and very little public support.
No Work
NO FRIENDS
NO WORK
NO MONEY
NO FUTURE
SO YOU WANT TO BECOME A SOLICITOR?
Impact of LSA. Well companies
Impact of LSA. Well companies will be able to buy law firms and do legal work, and the presumption is that they will all really want to, despite the fact that they have been in a position to open up tesco estate agencies/accountants/architects etc they never have. Everyone moans how little money there actually is in law now, so will they really bother?
Sorry to Burst Your Bubble, but.....
yes, they will. They really really will. A lot of my clients are law firms themselves and there are a huge number in talks with private equity and a considerable number in talks with insurers and claims referers. There will be a big change after October with many firms merging and laying off surplus staff and a fair few merging with insurers and CMCs. There goes my equity partnership!
There are a few firms which
There are a few firms which are already owned by insurance companies, co-located offices etc, co-op have been offering legal services for a long time, none of this actually looks that 'new' when those that really want to have been finding ways to do it ayway for years.
What's that coming over the
What's that coming over the hill is it a monster, is it a monster?
"were really good - honest" solicitors.com
The bottom line is that many solicitors provide a c*** service. However, this does not change just because you put the word “quality” in front of your name. In my view anybody who has to use the word “quality” to try to persuade the public that they provide a good service is not only sad but somewhat desperate. It is unfortunate that the Gazette (who wants it anyway and why is my cash being used to fund a weekly magazine that is quite pointless) and indeed the law society appears to champion such models to the extreme and talk about ABS’s as if they are the end of the world. Quality ( as in service not the name) will always prevail and frankly if anybody on the high street is unable to provide a service equivalent or better than the supermarkets then they deserve to fail. These outfits will not employ experienced decent lawyers but rather unqualified and poor “legal assistants” – the same assistants too many high street firms use to peddle their dysfunctional and incompetent conveyancing offering at an inflated cost.
I can categorically say that neither ABS nor “were really good – honest” solicitors will be a threat to my business. It just will not happen. There are many other threats including the frankly ludicrous regulatory body that is more concerned about diversity policies than matters that really count in the real world. For all of you solicitors who do mainly conveyancing stop moaning and do something about it. Improve your service and get authorised by somebody other than the SRA. Sorted.
Quality solicitors - soon to
Quality solicitors - soon to be in WH Smiths.
Shame "Which" recently recorded WH Smith as bottom out of 100 shops on the basis that they were "shabby" and staff "lacked knowledge". That is who Quality solicitors have decided to go in with. Maybe if WH Smith had suffered a sudden fall in rankings then you could understand why the decision had been taken, but they came last out of 100 the year before too. Does no-one do any research before deciding these things?!?
I have to say that although
I have to say that although there will be some difference, I do not think ABSs are going to be the end of the world as some seem to extoll.
There seems to be a focus on the large corporations affecting business, but the threat is more likely to be from accountants and business advisors to extend the work they do for their existing clients.
Many known brands already offer legal services through links with larger firms. Co-op does, most of the banks already offer probate services and often conveyancing and people use them. Even charities such as Age Concern offer legal services through solicitors. Either those firms will stay with their route or they may set up separately, but the services are already being offered and it will be the firms that are linked with those companies (which are often the very large firms) that would suffer.
There may be more entering the market, but a lot of the big players have already been dabbling in it.
When You Are Good At Marketing The Headache Goes
Everyone is competing for clients.
More competition might just increase the market, but I think it's going to be about grabbing what share of the market you can, rather than expanding it.
You can either take a pro-active approach or reactive.
I am always suprised and disillusioned when I see the newsletters coming out from the legal bodies because they rarely talk about marketing. It is mainly rules and regulations. But only marketing can get you the leads you want.
Perhaps the Law Gazette could start up a marketing forum where independent firms could share their best ideas and results and help each other. Then firms could benefit from several hundred minds all working together rather than separately.
It would also mean that instead of most commented stories being negative i.e. based on the threat, it could refocus on the positive, i.e. we did this and it worked so why don't you try it too.
If the Law Society won't take the lead who do you think should be supporting solicitors in the run up to Tesco Law and how to counter the threat through marketing?
Most problems go away when you have more leads than you can handle. It means you can pick and choose the best and most profitable work. So why isn't the Law Society helping solicitors do this or is it a case of everyone fend for themselves?
Laughable comment from Co-op
Laughable comment from Co-op regarding them being trusted while solicitors use jargon and an unclear charging policy.
So where do they sit on their 'legal team' calling recently bereaved family members before the Co-op arranged funeral has even taken place canvassing for Probate work, scaremongering that solicitors charge 5% on the value of an estate in administration fees and that hourly rates mean they won't know what the charge will be (despite fully costed quotes being the norm prior to instruction).
Trusted, honest, caring.........funny way of showing it!
Some solicitors charge all of
Some solicitors charge all of the following:-
Charge per letter sent
Charge a fixed percentage of the estate
Charge an horly rate
Many have milked private client and their monoploy to charge for applying for the grant of probate and it is time they faced competition.
With the introduction of ABS and the relaxing of probate restrictions accountants and others will be able to introduce more estate planning at an early stage with clients and hopefully provide a good and much needed amount of competition to this sector.
We agree fee structures with
We agree fee structures with clients beforehand and often only charge an hourly rate. The time to be spent is then estimated and sent to the client beforehand.
As for competition, this has always been the case in probate work. I should know. I have worked for HSBC Probate Services and now for a solicitors firm. Let me tell you, HSBCs fees were astronimical in comparision. 4% up to £200K, then 5% up to £250K plus 1% over and above that. A £250k estate cost £12,500 to administer, even if that involed 2/3 HSBC bank accounts. Which means they are charging for work they have not even done. Admittedly this was almost 10 years ago, and may now be different, but I could not believe the difference when I left.
Grant applications can be made personally by the named Exors, as they always have. A fact we always tell lay executors. So what is this monopoly you mention? I can only assume you mean Oath swears, which again can be done at the Probate Registry, at between £5.00 to £7.00! Hardly bankrupting folk is it?
Application for probate is
Application for probate is reserved and can only be done by solicitors for a fee. That is the monopoly. This is being changed for example Irex applied to do this work and the body has been approved.
monopolies
Def of a Monopoly: Exclusive control of a commodity or service in a market.
In the true sense this means exclusive control by one actual company does it not? Eg Microsoft selling computers with windows software. Otherwise, one could say that Hetas engineers have the monopoly on installing wood burning stoves, doctors on issuing prescriptions, registered child minders on being paid for looking after other people's children, teachers on teaching and so on (oh yes and qualified lawyers doing reserved legal work). If investing time and effort to qualify into a defined group of people legally permitted to do certain work makes one part of a monopoly, what is wrong with that? The whole point of working hard is to improve one's position in the job market (with a view to putting a roof over one's head) and to try and offer something that not everyone can do so as to maintain security and maximise income. There will still be competition amongst the various companies and businesses that are run by these people. There is still more than one provider to choose from but they all have a minimum level of qualification to do the job. The alternative is that we let anyone do any type of work in the interests of increasing competition and driving prices down further - but at what cost to the quality of the service and the protection of the consumer? Where's the balance? The likes of the co-op and banks griping that solicitors have the monopoly on probate and and it's not fair to the consumer that they are the only ones who can do such work for a fee is laughable. As if they care about reducing fees for the consumer, they just want the income fomr such work without having to put the graft in to be able to do it in the first place. Eventually, when Tesco and Co-op et al have closed down all smaller retailers and service providers, then we'll see a Monopoly.
Missed the point
You have missed the point. The enabling legilsation to end the monoploy in relation probate was, I believe, passed back in 1990! The profession has however prevented other institutes working in this area until now by delaying implementation.
There is no reason why this area of law should not be open to other regulated professions. It will soon be ripped open and the quicker this happens the better.
If you provide a good service
If you provide a good service and have a good reputation based on quality of work then the co-op and other banks will not affect your business. Only those who buy their work in or advertise heavily for one off clients will be bady affected.
The golden years are gone for solicitors but there is still scope for specialist practices to thrive. The only reason the co-op and others see this as a good market is because their market research tells them the public wants to buy these services from them. Lets not kid ourselves. They wouldn't have done this on a whim.
If our profession has not given the public the service it wanted then we have let them do this. No sense whinging about it now. Door .... horse.... bolted...
Who's Regulating the Co-op?
If a firm of solicitors opened their doors to the public and started giving advice (even free advice) you could reasonably ask "Who is regulating them? Where are their Practising Certificates? What PII do they have?"
So who's regulating the Co-op? The SRA is, so far as I know, the only regulator, apart from ILEX, and they SRA doesn't expect to start regulating ABSs until October. What indemnity insurance does the Co-op have, and who will be giving the advice?
The SRA regulates the
The SRA regulates the individual solicitors who work for the Co-op Legal Services, but not Co-op itself. So when things go wrong, it is their employees who carry the can. Nice.
There are already hundresd of solicitors' firms offering legal services on the high street, on a drop-in or appointment basis, who are more qualified than the Legal Practice Course level quoted in the printed version of this article.