Approved ABS

As of 1st July 2024, Frettens Solicitors has been approved by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority as an Alternative Business Structure (ABS).

The move enables Frettens to appoint non-lawyers as partners and owners of the business.

Unprecedented growth

Managing Partner Matthew Fretten on Frettens’ approval as an ABS:

“We have been through a period of unprecedented growth at Frettens.

Over the past five years we have more than doubled in size and now employ over 110 people.

The whole reason for our growth is to enable our team to develop and progress with us, and this has been reflected in numerous recent promotions.

‘Non-lawyers’ make up a large percentage of our team and have made a huge contribution to our recent success.

We want our colleagues to be as invested as our lawyers, so it makes complete sense to enable them to ultimately become partners and owners of the business.”

What is an ABS?

Becoming an ABS enables firms to do a number of things, including attracting external investment and offering non-legal services, however Frettens’ motivation for the move was purely to enable non-lawyers to become part of the ownership of the firm.

There are no plans to offer additional services or seek external investment.

What becoming an ABS means for our clients

Nothing changes for our clients. The firm remains a LLP, we are still regulated by the SRA and are the same legal entity.

In order to be accredited as an ABS, the firm (and any prospective new partners) had to be audited and approved by the SRA.

 You can read more about the process on the SRA website here.

What does this mean for our team?

“We hope this is another example to our team (and any prospective employees) that we are committed to making Frettens an outstanding place to work.” Continues Matthew.

“We place a huge emphasis on personal development and we believe that all of our team should be able to realise all their career ambitions at Frettens.

Being approved as an ABS means that any member of the team can progress to partnership and ownership of the firm. The partnership see this as another move in the right direction and we hope our team will too.”