Call to let lawyers issue stock

Law firms of the future should be allowed to float on the Stock Exchange so they can raise capital and operate more efficiently, the senior partner of a top City firm said last week.

Speaking at a Law Society forum on the future of the profession, Richard Price, senior partner of CMS Cameron McKenna, said: 'Everyone else - bankers, stockbrokers, architects, estate agents - has left partnership behind...

the only thing holding us back is the fear of the future itself.'

He said he was talking in a personal capacity and that Camerons has no specific plans to float .

But Mr Price said there was an appetite among City firms to float in order to raise capital for investment.

It would also give firms the chance to dismiss under-performing partners without overhanging equity repayments, and attract the brightest City players - currently being lured away by banks and brokers.

Mr Price said the free market would ensure that clients' interests remained paramount.

Elsewhere during the forum, which focused on plans to allow employed solicitors to offer services directly to the public, David Duckworth, chairman of the Direct Conveyancing Association, cast doubt on the future of high street practice.

He said: 'In the future, the service now offered by solicitors will be offered directly or indirectly by institutions and corporations.'

Mr Duckworth said there would still be a need for lawyers to carry out this work.

Chris Davis, joint chief operating officer of legal consultancy Lexfutura, said: 'Anyone with a brand name and customer base will be looking to deliver services through tied law firms.

But when the market deregulates they will start offering digital and on-line legal services direct to the public.'

Anne Page, chairwoman of the Law Society's Commerce and Industry Group, said: 'The jury is still out on whether - in a deregulated market - in-house lawyers or others within their companies would take control of the direct offering of legal services to the public.'

She said that brand pressure might ensure good practice from companies offering legal services.

Meanwhile Jonathan Gulliford, head of RAC's in-house legal team - which earlier this year signalled its desire to offer services to the public - said the public has as much faith in companies such as the RAC as the profession at large, and that it was 'self-interest' holding back reform.

Jeremy Fleming