The Bar Council has softened its opposition to multi-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs) despite the possibility of ownership by non-lawyers, new chairman Stephen Hockman QC revealed in an interview with the Gazette this week.

The council had previously warned of 'Maxwell law' and the 'Enronisation' of the legal market if non-lawyers were allowed to own law firms, chambers or MDPs.


MDPs, or 'alternative business structures' (ABS), were included in the government's White Paper on legal services reform last October.


Mr Hockman said: 'Since the bar sets out to be principally a referral profession, the existence of other strong and thriving professional groupings is very much in our best interests - these are prospective clients.'


He added, however, that he still had concerns about ABS regulation, saying: 'What will be the standards and culture that apply in an ABS if, as the White Paper envisages, a majority of its controllers and managers are not lawyers, and even if certified as fit and proper to be members of an ABS, are by definition not subject to a complaints procedure for breach, and are not within the regulatory remit of the legal services board or the office of legal complaints? What will be the effect on the ability of the public to gain redress?



'These are the questions which, as consumers, we the bar are asking and which Parliament will need to address.'


Mr Hockman added that the Bar Council had not ruled out applying to act as an ABS regulator.