Merseyside benefits from new jobs as new entrants seek to shake up law market Bill Gleeson reports

LAST week Liverpool law firm Silverbeck Rymer revealed plans to recruit 200 new staff in the city. It was part of a wider recruitment drive that will see the personal injury firm add a total of 300 staff across the country, including in Essex and Hampshire, where Silverbeck Rymer also has offices.

The new recruits will double the size of the law firm’s existing workforce. The expansion drive follows an agreement to sell the firm to Alternative Investment Market quoted Quindell Portfolio, though that deal is subject to regulatory approval.

Quindell’s £19.3m acquisition of Silverbeck follows the introduction of the Legal Services Act 2007, which seeks to make law more accessible and affordable for a broader range of consumers than has traditionally been the case.

The provisions of the Act have been dubbed ‘Tesco law’ because they are expected to attract household-name brands, such as supermarkets, and financial services businesses, to the legal services market.

The legislation also allows external investors, such as Quindell, to own or part-own law practices for the first time. To be allowed to operate as a legal practice, newcomers to the market must obtain Alternative Business Structure status from the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Conditions that must be met include appointing a Head of Legal Practice, who must be a qualified lawyer, and a Head of Finance and Administration, who does not need to be a lawyer.

The injections of fresh capital should allow smaller law firms to gear up so that they can exploit the potential new market place by investing in technology and marketing drives.

If successful, the new law businesses could create thousands of new jobs for solicitors, legal executives, information technology specialists, client relationship managers and administration staff.

Many of these new breed of lawyers and providers of legal services will be based in Britain’s regions, where operating costs are lower, rather than the expensive City of London.

Rob Mares, governance and risk partner at Silverbeck Rymer, said: “Quindell Portfolio has been a very acquisitive business in the last 12 months. They now have three strands to the business: IT, legal services and motor insurance-related services. The 300 staff figure is realistic and in time we do want to push on from that.”

Colleague Ruth Hogendoorn, Silverbeck Rymer’s head of governance, risk and compliance, added: “It (Quindell’s acquisitions) shows no sign of slowing down.”

Quindell is owned and run by the founder and owner of The Innovation Group, Rob Terry, who has a background in insurance-related business outsourcing services.

Ms Hogendoorn continued: “We are confident we can recruit all of these staff. Liverpool is a great place for personal injury work. We will get the right quality of people. We would look to promote from within the firm, but with this we expect we are going to have to recruit externally, too.”

Silverbeck’s Brunswick Business Park office will remain open 24 hours a day as staff make calls to clients in the evenings and carry out administrative work throughout the night.

Another local legal business that expects to expand hugely is Riverview Law. Owned in part by DLA Piper, one of the world’s largest law firms, Riverview Law’s largest operating base is in Bromborough, employing 40 of the firm’s 100 staff.

It plans to offer a full service across the traditional range of practice areas such as litigation, commercial law, employment law and others to commercial customers for fixed fees. As well as lawyers and legal executives, the site employs IT specialists, client managers and marketing professionals, among others.

Riverview Law’s chief executive, Karl Chapman, said: “With the changes in the legal market and with our strategy of organic growth and acquisitions, we will see the size of Riverview grow dramatically.

“Some have speculated it will be 1,000 people. Who knows, but that’s not unrealistic given the size of the opportunity in the market.

“The business law segment is worth £15bn a year.