4. Commercial Focus Flashcards
What is a legal practise?
It can take many forms such as sole practitioners, partnerships, companies and Alternative Business Structures (ABS)
Also includes non-law firms, such as in-house legal professionals (within government, social policy organisations, police, CPS)
Law is also provided by barristers who are specialist legal advisors and court room advocates.
What are legal services?
This relates to the range of services on a range of topics which law firms provide.
E.g conveyancing, employment, private client, family, civil litigation.
What is the difference between contentious and non-contentious?
Contentious: involves disputes between two or more parties, and it can involve litigation through the courts, or other dispute resolutions such as mediation or arbitration.
Non-contentious: more efficient as it does not involve disputes between parties and unlikely to involve court:
What are the organisational structure of law firms?
It very much depends on its size, geographical location, nature of work, budget and access to resources and technology.
Some firms design structure around areas of law they are involved in, such as contentious and non-contentious or pre and post litigation.
Each firm is likely to have a management structure suitable to their supervisory performance and communication needs.
A form may reconsider its organisational structure in order to stay competitive.
How can commercial opportunities generate income to the firm?
Commercial clients likely to send work on a regular basis.
This work will either attract a fixed fee or the client may be charged for the time spent on the caseS
Service level agreements usually state how frequently a client must be updated and if there are any key updates at certain times, such as cost updates.
