Law firms Weightmans and Gateley take ABS route

LAW firms Weigtmans and Gateley have both been granted alternative business structure (ABS) licences which will allow them to bring external investment and appoint non-lawyers into senior management roles.

Under ABS, law firms can change their ownership arrangements away from shareholding partnerships to structures more aligned to non-legal businesses such as banks, insurance companies and financial services firms.

They can also launch different types of products and services. Irwin Mitchell was the first law firm to go down the ABS route.

John Schorah, managing partner of Liverpool-based Weightmans said: “We are delighted to receive our ABS licence ahead of the new year. This approved business model, confirms our total dedication to being as versatile and flexible as we possibly can, to ensure we can grow, change and adapt providing a high quality and coherent service for our clients.”

The firm has offices nationwide including Knutsford and Manchester.

Birmingham-based Gateley, which enterted the Manchester market after acquiring the former Halliwells commercial teams three years ago, has also become an ABS.

Senior partner Michael Ward said: “With management of law firms becoming ever more competitive we can see that’s it’s something which will happen more and more and we just felt that was the right thing to do to have flexibility.”

Gateley currently has 150 partners with 131 of those in the equity and boasts an average profit per equity partner of £262,000.

The ABS licence will cover the Gateley’s offices in Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham but not its Scottish offices where ABS is not recognised.