In recent years the legal services industry has seen some major changes, chiefly prompted by the emergence of new types of law firms and new pricing models. In a new report, SixthSense, the business intelligence unit of YouGov, looks into how the new legal landscape impacts consumers and how many Britons now use non-traditional sources of legal advice. The report chiefly focuses on consumer-related legal services, including Wills and Probate, personal injury and accidents, and conveyancing.

Over the next two years the UK legal services market is likely to exhibit modest growth levels, fuelled mainly by larger sector players and the increasing presence of new legal models, says YouGov in its Legal Services 2013 report.

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The Scottish government is taking more time to review the application of the Law Society of Scotland to become an approved regulator and as such it will delay the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs) at least until the end of the year.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is to speed up the process of giving lower-risk applications alternative business structure (ABS) status in a move to address concerns that the current procedure takes too much time, the Law Gazette has reported.

A new market report from the Law Society looking into the supply side of the legal services market has identified alternative business structures (ABSs) as a key driver of change in the sector.

The Law Society will contest the application by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) to regulate probate services and alternative business structures (ABSs), Legal Futures has reported.

While commending the decision of the Legal Services Board (LSB) to recommend to the Lord Chancellor that Will writing should become reserved legal work, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) has expressed dissatisfaction with the LSB's move to leave estate administration out of regulation.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) have confirmed their bids to become regulators of will writers, amid criticism of the recommendation by the Legal Services Board (LSB) to leave estate administration out of regulation.