Bar urges chambers to offer clients a 'one-stop shop' to compete with solicitors

New Bar Council chairman Nicholas Green QC is urging chambers to set up separate business units to help them compete with solicitors to win work from clients.

The groundbreaking initiative would see individual chambers encouraged to set up business units, called 'procurecos', which would be used as a means of winning work direct from companies and public bodies, cutting out the solicitors who generally serve as middlemen between chambers and clients.

Each procureco would bring together barristers with solicitors and other professions, like accounting firms, effectively enabling chambers to offer a one-stop shop to clients at a cheaper rate than solicitors.

The move would reverse the traditional referral system that sees solicitors appoint chambers on behalf of clients and would put more control in the hands of the Bar, with each procureco effectively operating a number of panels for different professions.

The procurecos would source rather than supply work, allowing solicitors and barristers working under the umbrella units to remain regulated as individuals by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board (BSB) respectively.

However, if the BSB were to opt to become an entity-based regulator under changes introduced through the Legal Services Act, the units could start supplying work through a fixed roster of solicitors.

Green, who took up his post on 1 January, kicked off a series of roadshows to publicise the initiative earlier this week (11 January), telling Legal Week that he hoped some could be in place as early as next month.

Green said: "The Bar has a cost advantage compared to many firms of solicitors. Last year we thought procurecos might just apply to the publicly funded Bar but we realised this is something the commercial Bar can take advantage of as well."

He added: "The advantage of a procureco is that the Bar will still maintain its traditional look and feel. This is a bolt-on that can be set up easily and effectively so the Bar can offer a one-stop shop to clients."

The new structure is waiting for approval from the Legal Services Board. The BSB is set to consult this year on alternative business structures following the approval in November of legal disciplinary partnerships that will allow barristers to work in solicitors' firms without re-qualifying.

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