Legal Disciplinary Partnerships (LDPs) and Solicitors

Traditionally, if you were not a qualified solicitor, your status within the community of persons who practiced law was that of an also-ran.

If you had not passed the Stage 1 professional qualification, and subsequently, having completed your Articles, been admitted to the hallowed ranks of solicitors, you would have been some form of clerk, which, in legalspeke, would have meant you were not far from being the servant of the professional man, the solicitor. And, of course, the solicitor would certainly have been a man.

Gradually, the closed shop, which used to be the legal profession, has been regulated away. So much so, that the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) now regulates not just qualified solicitors who are in business together, but solicitors and non-solicitors who are in business together.

Legal Solutions Partnership is one such business.

We are a partnership of three solicitors and one non-solicitor. Even though most of our people who do the legal work are qualified solicitors, because we have a partner who is not legally qualified, we are not, strictly speaking, a solicitors firm.

We are designated as a Legal Disciplinary Partnership, or LDP.

However, the regulations that govern us, the legal work that we do, and those who regulate what we do, are identical in every way as if we were solicitors in partnership.

So does the distinction between an LDP and a solicitors firm have any meaning at all?

Just about, is the answer.

We are only permitted to conduct business as an LDP because our non-lawyer manager has been approved by the SRA, and because the SRA has issued us with a Recognition Certificate as an LDP.

Why does all this matter?

Well, it does matter because the Legal Sector has changed dramatically in the last 25 years and will change perhaps even more dramatically in the next 2-5 years.

LDPs are the forerunners of Alternative Business Structures (ABS) which are due to be licenced from the end of 2011.

ABS will not only be allowing non-lawyers to enter into partnership with qualified solicitors but will also be permitting external non-legal businesses to invest in, and perhaps financially control, legal businesses.

As one of few LDPs, Legal Solutions Partnership is a forward looking business both in terms of our constitution and in terms of our approach to legal services.

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