Barristers can now set up BSB-regulated business models

updated on 06 January 2015

From 5 January 2015, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) will now accept applications from practitioners wishing to set up new business models, become a partnership or set up an LLP. The regulator will begin authorising applications from April.

While the BSB is becoming a regulator of entities, it is not yet authorising alternative business structures (ABS) – which are entities with non-lawyer owners and managers. Currently it plans to apply separately to the Legal Services Board to become an ABS licensing authority this year. 

Oliver Hanmer, director of supervision for the BSB, commented: "This is a major chapter in the story of the Bar. Adjusting the way in which it does business is critical to the profession’s posterity… As a regulator, it is our job to do what we can to enable barristers to alter the ways in which they can structure their practice so it better meets clients’ needs."