Dozen silks sign up for launch of ABS LawVest
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LawVest has signed up 12 silks for its legal services offering Riverview Law, which launches today.
Richard Lissack QC
Riverview Law, the trading name of ABS LawVest, which is part-owned by DLA Piper (28 October 2011), consists of two entities: Riverview Chambers and Riverview Solicitors.
Riverview Chambers has 43 barristers in total and is aiming to provide direct access to companies on a fixed fee. Riverview Solicitors will provide routine advice to business clients, also on a strict fixed-fee basis. Its model will be based on annual contracts with pricing determined by the size of the company.
Riverview Law will focus on employment, health and safety, intellectual property, corporate governance, family, divorce and environmental law. The silks include Richard Lissack QC, Jonathan Caplan QC and Stephen Tromans QC.
The barristers involved will retain membership of their existing chambers. These include Outer Temple, 1 Hare Court, 39 Essex Street, 11 South Square and 3 Pump Court.
Chief executive Karl Chapman told The Lawyer: “This is all about providing customers with certainty and transparency.”
Richard Lissack QC, who is head of strategic development at Outer Temple Chambers and head of the business and international teams at Riverview Law, said: “This provides businesses with an option for barrister-led advisory work and representation in-house within a single organisation.
“It has tremendous potential internationally and it fits in with the bar’s message. In fact it’s a paradigm example of providing direct access.”
LawVest’s shareholders include DLA Piper and AdviserPlus, a provider of outsourced HR, employment and health and safety advice.
For more on LawVest, see this week’s feature, Invested interest.
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Readers' comments (14)
Dayglo Dave | 20-Feb-2012 5:50 pm
I really do hope this venture fails, spectacularly. This kind of thing simply serves to drive down the amount all of us earn. The profession saw this happen in conveyancing 20 years ago. Now it's happening with commercial law. Soon large legal businesses will be owned by non-lawyers and the poor lawyers who have to work in the faceless factories will be just that. Poor. Look at the miserly salaries LawVest have been offering solicitors. "Up to £30,000." How incredibly generous. It's deeply regrettable.
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Michael Welsh | 21-Feb-2012 10:39 am
CompareLegalCosts.com launched last year to provide a web portal for Law Firms to deliver fixed cost legal services to businesses and consumers.
We had our critics, but the announcement by DLA and Riverview Law fully endorses our view that fixed cost legal services are the future.
This is what businesses and consumers desire and it is welcome news that a leading global law firm shares our vision. DLA and Riverview Law lead the way and others must surely follow if they wish to thrive in this new legal landscape.
Since launching CompareLegalCosts.com last year we have seen an influx of enquiries from businesses and consumers for a range of legal services.
Michael Welsh
Solicitor and Founder of CompareLegalCosts.com
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Anonymous | 21-Feb-2012 1:43 pm
Who will provide the clerking and on what basis? Payment of any fee would be a breach of the BSB regulations if it were not for clerking. If payment is made direct to the new organisation, how or why would an existing chambers allow this? It would be interesting to know what the deal is with the current chambers.
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Anonymous | 28-Feb-2012 1:00 am
This is all a red herring; if you look at the scope of services on offer for the fixed fee and in particular what is not covered, all they are doing is providing basic advice on day-to-day corporate, etc. matters; the sort of thing that an in-house department would do in a medium sized company, or which would be done by a 3 year associate in a City firm. All the value-added work is subject to additional quotes, and some work they will not do at all. This is no different from engaging a client on a retainer for basic work and offering fixed fees for complex work where the scope can be agreed - my firm does both regularly. The costs are kept low by basing the staff in the North-west, where the salary mentioned is not too bad for the sort of work on offer. Saying it is some sort of earth shattering new concept is good marketing but just spin. Existing firms could replicate this at the drop of a hat and without too much loss in revenue. In Asia clients will usually require fixed fees or caps, and retainers are common.
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