“Will businesses use the new style "Tesco Law" or will they stick with their trusted advisers?"

Jonathan Chadwick
Commercial Managing Partner
Stephensons Solicitors






The opening up of the legal market will greatly increase the choice on offer for consumers of legal services.

For the consumer, this may enable them to have greater flexibility over where they obtain legal services, how they pay for them and how they receive them. For example, we are already seeing more online services and an increase in fixed price legal products.

Consumers tend to use solicitors for one off purchases such as Wills or a once in a lifetime event like a divorce and so the new entrants to the legal market, likely to be high street brands with customer loyalty schemes and huge marketing budgets, may be quite appealing to the public.

Businesses, which are more likely to be repeat purchasers of legal services, tend to select their legal representation through reputation, word of mouth and recommendation.

Often the relationship between a business owner and their solicitor will have been built up over many years, with the solicitor having an in-depth knowledge of the business they represent.

It seems unlikely that businesses that have trusted advisors in place will switch their allegiance to a consumer focussed brand unless of course they are unhappy with their current provider. Start-up companies with no particular connection to any solicitor may be more likely to shop around and base their choice of legal service provider on price or commodity offerings.