Solicitor start-up service launched as Covid-19 shakes up legal market

Hawke Legal, the legal consulting business based in the East Midlands, has launched a sister business ‘Buildalawfirm’ to service the increase in activity of new law firm start-ups by individuals and small teams.

MD Rupert Hawke said: “We deal with established firms all over the country but recently we have had a number of enquiries from solicitors – individuals and teams – looking to start their own firms and requiring help in terms of set-up and ongoing business management and strategy. Hawke Legal has experts in all areas of legal business support and to create a clear identity we have set-up Buildalawfirm to provide the expertise as required.”

Hawke believes the COVID crisis has led to an upturn in interest.

He added: “The lockdown has created huge problems for a lot of firms and I think this might lead to diseconomies of scale effect in the legal sector.

“Sadly some solicitors are either being made redundant or seeing opportunities limited in their current firms as firms realign to get through the current difficulties.

“Coupled with the experience from the lockdown that consumers are more willing to work remotely with their solicitor meaning less reliance on lease costs and that IT can be utilised to reduce the need for support staff, the barrier to entry are reduced with costs to run a smaller practice not particularly prohibitive. ”

He continued: “We are very keen to support entrepreneurial solicitors in all their business needs and investing in the some legal start-ups is also an option.”