Tesco Law was never supposed to be like this. We expected a flood of new entrants to a high street near you, laden with private equity cash and ideas of grandeur, many backed by existing big-name brands. Alternative business structures were going to sweep up the mass market of personal injury claims, whilst the biggest firms looked on from the skyscrapers with a healthy disdain.

So the arrival of cocky upstart Riverview Law is fascinating in many ways (not least because we’re still wondering which river we’re supposed to be looking at). The big draw is a fixed-fee service and annual, all-encompassing contracts. For businesses with up to five employees, legal advice will cost from £2,400 a year. Up to 24 staff members and you pay almost £4,000, up to 50 and it’s almost £6,000.

For companies beyond this size the figures are bespoke and can vary, with the biggest corporations encouraged to use a new outsourcing service that may have some in-house lawyers checking the job market this morning. Fixed fees are not a new concept but they will certainly be alien to the types of firms expected to face competition from Riverview. We know they appeal to consumers/clients/customers, no matter how deep their pockets. Certainty is a priceless commodity in an age of such economic turmoil.

Whether this can be achieved without compromise on quality of delivery is another matter. Riverview may not be involved in a race to the bottom, but there’s no guarantee everyone will be so concerned with high standards. And what happens when one of those small businesses ends up in legal hot water? That £200 a month won’t come close to covering the work required. In effect, fixed fees replicate the insurance model, taking small amounts from lots of entities with the occasional large payout to nibble at the profits.

Most intriguing of all is the relationship between the major financial backer, the global firm DLA Piper, and the fledgling. There is every chance that Riverview will be competing with its mentor for business, creating a strange Miliband-esque internal conflict. Competitors working for the same ultimate owner are not unusual in retail but anomalous to the legal world. What Riverview has done, in recruiting dozens of respected solicitors and barristers and hurtling to the front of the race for business, gives it a great platform for success.

Most City firms will most likely treat this new opponent as a cut-price and sub-standard rival, the legal equivalent of the 99p store. They may come to regret their indifference. We’re seeing innovations almost every week now as a result of the liberalisation of the legal market. Small practices have always been the likely casualties, but as this tornado grows ever stronger, it seems there is no firm too big to avoid the effects.

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