ContractStore Legal Business Blog

The hourly rates of law firms in the UK have increased by 89% nationally over the past four years, according to a speaker at the Sweet & Maxwell Forum for General Counsel held last week in London. The conference discussed ways of controlling the cost of external legal support.

HM Customs & Revenue may have lost a few CD’s recently but they remain committed to modern technology: they have launched a podcast for people who are setting up their own business or becoming self-employed for the first time. Packed full of useful information, the podcast gives a step-by-step guide to the listener, helping them to get things right from the beginning.

The podcasts can be downloaded from HMRC’s podcast page on its website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/podcasts

If your business is registered for VAT, new VAT invoicing rules have recently been introduced. From 1 October companies who are VAT registered should have consecutively numbered sales invoices. Up to now, they have only had to have an identifying number. Other new rules include the need for VAT invoices relating to exempt supplies. I understand that HMRC are giving everyone 12 months to comply so if your numbers are randomly chosen, you won’t be put in jail just yet.

We normally deal with commercial issues on this website, but given the current debate on the Government’s plan to extend the 28 days for which a person can be held by the police without being charged,

Last week the Legal Services Act became law. This introduces some fundamental changes to the regulation of lawyers as well as changing the legal profession itself, by allowing non-lawyers to become members of law firms. This aspect of the legislation was dubbed ‘Tesco Law’ when the Bill was going through Parliament and the new “Alternative Business Structures”, as they are called, will see new ways of legal services being delivered and, in time perhaps, law firms floating on the Stock Exchange.

At ContractStore we have been ahead of the game for some time: ContractStore was launched a couple of years before the Legal Services Act was even drafted and our wide range of commercial contracts has allowed our customers to obtain quality documents without the costs normally associated with the legal profession, a particular benefit for SME’s. With the new law in place we expect our tailored services will see more activity. And we are already associated with other innovative professionals, vLegal among others, with whom we will continue to offer cost effective and responsive legal solutions for business while always maintaining high standards.

Key elements of the new law include:

A new Legal Services Board (LSB) to act as an independent and publicly accountable regulator with the power to enforce high standards in the legal sector, replacing the maze of regulators with overlapping powers. The chair of the Board will be a non-lawyer.

A single and fully independent Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) to remove complaints handling from the legal professions and ensure consumer confidence.

Alternative Business Structures (ABS) that will enable consumers to obtain services from one business entity that brings together lawyers and non-lawyers, (in theory) increasing competitiveness and improving services. The Act will also allow legal services firms to have up to 25 per non-lawyer partners in the near future, before the full ABS regulatory structure is implemented, and will allow different kinds of lawyers to form firms together in the near future.

A .co.uk domain name was sold this week for a record price: recycle.co.uk went for

The Government confirmed yesterday, 7th November, that implementation of parts of the new Companies Act will be delayed for a year – until October 2009. It was feared that companies might incur