A fee-sharing firm and self-styled disruptor of the legal industry has collapsed, weeks after facing a winding-up petition.
Mezzle Law, which claimed to put the power back into the hands of lawyers and their clients, appointed administrators from FTS Recovery earlier this month.
The firm has effectively closed, with its website directing visiting to the administrators’ page. The Gazette understands from the administrators that a skeleton staff and a number of consultant lawyers have been retained to assist an appointed solicitor manager, who is overseeing the orderly work out of the client files, whilst they liaise with and keep the Solicitors Regulation Authority updated on progress.
The company had been subject to a winding-up petition brought in August by HM Revenue & Customs. Administrators were appointed the day before this petition was due to be heard in the Royal Courts of Justice.
Mezzle was started in 2021 and marketed itself as a new kind of City law firm, promising its consultants a next-day payment promise. Those who joined up were able to keep 70% of their fees up to £500,000 and 80% thereafter. Its founders were former gunnercooke solicitor Mel Kang and Raj Sumal, formerly of Flint Bishop and DAC Beachcroft.
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Lawyers were recruited from some of the leading law firms in the country and by March 2023 it had 46 individuals on its books – 36 in the UK and 10 in the UAE.
Kang, who claimed to ‘speak and breathe the language of a consultant lawyer’, said at the time that consultant-based operations were still too often seen as a road to retirement and that he wanted to change this perception. The firm sought to attract lawyers who were in their 30s and 40s with at least 10 years’ post-qualification experience. Those lawyers worked on the proprietary platform, Mezzle Cloud, with paralegal support available.
Despite its consultancy-led operation, the firm also moved into areas regarded as more traditional law. In 2021, it paid £25,000 to take on some of the assets of Silks Law Limited when it went into administration. The deal included Mezzle taking on 15 of the remaining Silks staff. Kang remains a director of Silks Law.
In an even bigger departure from its business model, Mezzle acquired historic Suffolk firm Gotelee Solicitors in 2024. Kang said at the time that it could grow the business by bringing in cutting edge tech-based solutions into the Gotelee operation. Within a year, two of the offices in Hadleigh and Felixstowe had been closed.
Companies House records show Kang is the sole remaining director of the company. Sumal resigned as director in December 2024. Chief financial officer Jasbir Gill was brought onto the board in January 2023 but he resigned as director last month.
Mezzle Limited reported for the year ended December 2024 that it had net assets of around £826,000, including cash reserves of £436,000.
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