Nearly half of all consumers (46.9 per cent) are willing to use new providers of legal services like divorce, residential property conveyancing and will writing when the Legal Services Bill becomes law, according to new research¹ published today.

And people are more likely to trust financial institutions to deliver legal services than almost any other type of firm. Banks, building societies and insurers occupy seven out of the top ten places for preferred firms to deliver legal services after deregulation. The top spot is taken by the Citizens Advice Bureau, while the AA and Tesco take the other two top ten places. Bottom of the list come utilities, newspapers and telecoms companies with very few consumers willing to consider them as alternative providers.

The results were launched at a forum on the future of volume legal services hosted by Capita and Epoq in association with Optima Legal Services.

  Key results include:  

·           more than six in ten (61.5%) consumers have used legal services of one sort or another over the last five years and more than a quarter (26.8%) have used them in the last year;  

·           conveyancing is the legal service used most commonly by consumers (33.3%) during the last five years with wills or inheritance tax (15.1%) and legal services related to family issues, like divorce (14.4%) also being subject to frequent use;  

·           58.7 per cent of consumers are likely² to use a bank or building society to provide volume legal services in the future. Comparable figures for other sectors include 47.9 per cent for insurance companies, 44.2 per cent for independent financial advisers and 31.7 per cent for supermarkets.  

·           Meanwhile just 20.2 per cent of consumers would use a utility or telecoms company, 16.6 per cent would use a newspaper and 8.9 per cent would use a football club.

Max Pell, managing director of Capita Legal Services said:  “It’s clear that there is a huge potential market for ‘alternative’ providers of volume legal services, with nearly half of consumers saying that they would use them in a market worth some £11-12 billion a year among individuals and £2-3 billion among SMEs.    

“’Known expertise in the legal area in question’ is the key consideration in choosing where to buy legal services – it was ranked as important by 76.9 per cent of consumers and 75.8 per cent of small businesses.

  “Consumers rated security of information as the next most important factor (74 per cent rated it as important), perhaps explaining in part why banks and building societies did so well, while small firms rated ‘better value for money’ as their number two most important factor (75.3 per cent).   

“Both consumers and small businesses also displayed a high degree of willingness to interact with a new provider of legal services through a direct channel, such as e-mail or telephone, as opposed to a face-to-face environment, suggesting that contact centres and websites will play an important role in the future of volume legal services.”

  Media - for further information please contact:

Caroline Mooney

Capita Press Office:                0207 654 2152

Notes to editors:

1. The research for Law Metrics: Consumer and Small Business Behaviour in the UK Legal Services Market is based on a survey carried out between July and August 2006 using the IMRS Internet panel of consumers and small business owners. In total, completed surveys were filled in and submitted on-line by 1,385 consumers and 240 small business owners, including self-employed individuals. The full report is available from Finaccord at a cost of £1,495.

2. Combines the scores for quite likely and very likely.

Capita Legal Services

Capita currently provide legal services in the form of Legal Advice help lines, identity theft recovery  legal expenses insurance and the provision of advice help lines for the Legal Services Commission. This forms part of Capita’s strategy to build and strengthen its provision of specialist support for volume legal services. In accordance with The Law Society’s regulations, Capita provide funding and back office support via outsourced contract arrangements with a number of law firms. This includes Optima Legal Services which is an independent law firm regulated by The Law Society.

Finaccord

Founded in 2003, Finaccord is a market research, publishing and consulting company specialising in financial and professional services in the UK and Europe. It bases its published information, research projects and consultancy assignments on robust data and knowledge rather than supposition and theory. Law Metrics: Consumer and Small Business Behaviour in the UK Legal Services Market, the report arising from the research program, constitutes the most in-depth analysis of consumer and small business behaviour in the context of legal services ever published in the UK.

IMRS

IMRS (Internet Market Research Services) is the largest on-line research facility in the UK, with over 300,000 voluntary members. IMRS enables brand owners and advertising agencies the opportunity to collect in-depth, specific feedback from consumers about their brand, product or media strategy with turnaround times of 48 hours from receipt of client brief. Moreover, the vast size of the IMRS panel ensures that relevant audiences can be selected and profiled effectively by demographic category or profile and, because its members have actively volunteered to join the panel, the utmost accuracy and quality of responses is guaranteed.

Optima Legal Services , is a centre of excellence for volume legal services including re-mortgage, conveyancing, legal recoveries and repeat dispute resolution. Formerly part of legal firm, DLA the business has over 18 years experience of improving results for UK organisations, blending process efficiency with the highest levels of customer service. With over 260 employees located at a single site in Bradford the operation manages more than 90,000 instructions each year. Further information on Optima Legal Services can be found at www.optimalegal.co.uk.

Epoq Group - s ince 1994 Epoq (www.epoq.co.uk) has been developing new and innovative legal solutions; we are a trusted provider to many of the worlds leading financial institutions

and now provide intelligent legal document services to over 1 million of their customers.

Epoq has invested over £10 million in technologies and relationships to fully manage the

delivery of legal services, we have developed over 300 individual award winning solutions, including wills, divorce and employment.

The Capita Group Plc is the UK’s leading provider of integrated professional support service solutions. The Group’s service capabilities encompass customer services, financial services, human resource services, software services, systems and strategic support and property services delivered to both public sector and private organisations. With over 25,000 employees at more than 250 offices across the UK and Ireland, Capita is quoted on the London Stock Exchange (CPI.L), and is a constituent of the FTSE100 with revenues for 2005 of £1,436 million. Further information on The Capita Group Plc can be found at:  www.capita.co.uk