QualitySolicitors sets sights on UK domination with private equity injection
High street franchise QualitySolicitors has secured a private equity investment aimed at significantly growing the brand across the UK.
Craig Holt
The size of the investment by private equity partnership Palamon Capital Partners, which has €1.1bn (£960m) under management, is not known.
The agreement will see Palamon gain a majority shareholding in the company, although it will not have a stake in the law firms that are franchise members.
Palamon investments are typically in the region of €10 to €80m (£8.7m to £70m), according to the Law Society Gazette.
QualitySolicitors was launched as an online legal alliance in 2008, but has since evolved into a high street legal alliance. For an annual fee firms sit on a panel that allows them to pool resources to market services.
The alliance is the brainchild of barrister Craig Holt and was launched with the support of Michael Gradon, a former Slaughter and May solicitor and one-time head of legal and commercial at P&O Group.
Earlier this year The Lawyer reported that QualitySolicitors had struck a deal with WHSmith to allow it to place representatives in up to 500 of the retailer’s branches (7 April 2011).
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Readers' comments (20)
Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 2:36 pm
I choose my solicitor on the basis of who Amanda Holden and Stacy Solomon recommends.
For this reason Quality Solcitors are my bag.
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Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 3:02 pm
You only have to look at the "quaility" of their London practices to see how poorly represeneted they are in the capital!
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Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 3:46 pm
Not just London. You should see their Manchester firms. Never heard of them until I did a search.
The only consumers who will use them are ones with no money so it's difficult to see where the profits are going to come from with the cuts in legal aid and what with everyone being skint 'n all! It's going to mean endless clients walking in carrying plastic bags full of paperwork about how they were overcharged on their mobile phone bill (shudders).
Those private clients with money to spend on legal services will be laughed out of their golf clubs if they use a QS firm.
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Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 4:03 pm
According to the website there's no Quality Solicitors in Newcastle.
That's despite the (very strong) rumours that some of the bigger Newcastle firms have been negotiating to join (and giving the gladeye to the kiosk in WHSmith).
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Rural bliss | 20-Oct-2011 4:16 pm
It's a huge mistake to use the word `Quality' in the name.
If you have to tell the world you're a `quality' outfit the implication is that they wouldn't otherwise have realised.
It's a bit like a car dealer called `Honest Fred'.
And from personal experience the firms carrying this brand that I've so far dealt with have been noticeably less efficient than their unbranded counterparts.
I suspect many of the firms who are signing up are fairly desperate for work, and this is their last throw of the dice before they have to close the doors.
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Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 4:24 pm
One can be snobby all they like, but let's be honest 95% of work done by the regional law firms could be done through volume workhouses with one 5 yr PQE solicitor to 10 paralegals (& some precedents written by a magic circle firm).
Frankly nobody is impressed at the local golf club by name dropping a regional law firm into conversation. It may as well be Quality Solicitors. The argument that law firms are so super intellectual that their work can't be made into a cheaper commodity only works for the biggest 20 firms and a few boutiques.
*starts playing jaws music*
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Anonymous | 20-Oct-2011 4:55 pm
So many commercial lawyers have turned the nose up at this move but QS and Craig Holt must be commended for showing some business nous.
Mr Holt started this business 2/3 years ago while still practising as a barrister. He had effectively offered a lifeline to hundreds of firms suffering with cuts in legal aid, lower legal fees and higher insurance premiums and whopping rents. Anybody who can find a new route to market - albeit through WHSmith- is to be congratulated. As for the City lawyers questioning the quality- sare I ask what quality they offer legal consumers from the high street? There is a massive market out there demanding decent legal advice at a rate which doesn't require a trip to the bank for a loan. Even £150 an hour is ludicrous for somebody on an average wage. We don't all earn six figure sums so perhaps its time for the City to start learning about the real world - even if they don't live in it.
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Anonymous | 21-Oct-2011 9:17 am
Quality Solicitors stated about 10 months ago that they were in talks with 3 top 100 firms.
If these join then the stigma of Quality Solicitors will disappear. I could hazard a guess at the names of the 3 firms... They're very likely to be large regional firms that have had to make redundancies and need to pay rent upon expensive offices. They'll take a hit on status just to avoid doing a Halliwells.
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Anonymous | 21-Oct-2011 9:30 am
Last year Dickinson Dees and a couple of other top 100 firms denied being one of the firms in negotiation with Quality Solicitors.
I wonder if they would so quick to rule out joining Quality Solicitors now?
It now looks quite an attractive package for them. They could have a guaranteed pipeline of work, a big cash injection, publicity in every WHSmith and be seen as the leading firm in the Quality Solicitors network
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Anonymous | 21-Oct-2011 11:40 am
My perception is a that there are a few very worried solicitors commenting here, trying to do down Quality Solicitors.
Well, I'm city qualified, I'm now a corporate head of legal and I gave them a spin for a personal case I am bringing. I hated the name and had I reservations.
But I'm delighted with them.
Like I say, based on my experience of them, those who are worried should be. People like me will be giving them commercial work soon too at this rate.
I suggest others focus less on berating them and more on adapting for them. It is only you who will suffer adverse consequences should you not heed the warning.
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