‘All lawyers’ should be preparing for the introduction of alternative business structures in October 2011, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said last week, as the coalition government gave the first public confirmation that it will press ahead with the reforms and will stick to the timetable already in place.

Djanogly confirmed that the Legal Services Act 2007 reforms have been given the green light by the cabinet’s reducing regulation committee. He said ABSs would encourage ‘greater competition and innovation in the legal sector’, and lead to ‘a better focus on the consumer’.

In a speech at the Law Society, he said: ‘No one should be under the illusion that I wish to delay ABS introduction, and all lawyers should be preparing for its introduction’.

Djanogly said risks to small or inefficient legal suppliers could be mitigated by ‘the possibility provided by ABSs that practitioners from different professions (legal and non-legal) would be able to join up to ensure that it is economically viable for them to continue to provide legal and associated services.’

The minister said that an impact assessment that took account of the effects of legal disciplinary practices on the market would be conducted to ‘assess the impact of commencing the regime, including the impact on access to justice, sole practitioners and smaller firms before any decision to commence the regime is taken.’

Djanogly added that he was aware of the Law Society’s concerns about the ‘challenging timetable the Legal Services Board has set’ for implementing the reforms, and the ‘possible adverse impact of ABSs on small firms and the need to ensure sufficient quality assurance of the changed market’.