Meerkats stand up for law and students wake up to ABS opportunities

Yorkshire personal injury firm Minster Law has been bought by BGL Group, insurance intermediary and owner of comparethemarket.com (famed for its meerkats). Legal Futures reports that BGL received its alternative business structure (ABS) licence on 31 May, enabling it to buy Minster Law in what it claims to be the largest sale of a law firm to date. Minster Law has 800 employees and handles over 40,000 cases a year.

Adrian Christmas, chairman of Minster Law, said: "BGL Group and Minster Law have worked closely together for a number of years. The acquisition of Minster Law will enable our partnership to develop further and allow us to strengthen the market leading service we provide to our customers."

In other ABS news, results of the University of Law's (UoL's) recent student survey show that 63% of would-be solicitors agreed that the introduction of ABS provides wider employment opportunities for lawyers - a 9% increase from the same survey conducted in 2011. In addition, 47% of respondents felt that ABS also provided lawyers with more options for developing their skills and progressing their careers.

Nevertheless, the survey showed a resistance among participants to actually choose to work for an ABS over a law firm, with 58% (the same figure as in 2011) replying that they would not actively seek work with an ABS.

Professor Nigel Savage, UoL president and provost, says: "ABS have been in operation for over a year now, and with almost 150 ABS licences having been issued since March 2012, it is clear that the law services industry is entering a new period of development. It is promising to see that students are becoming more aware of ABS, but more work needs to be done to show students that ABS are here to stay and that they will ultimately offer an abundance of career opportunities alongside the traditional law firms for students in the coming years."