If your business is providing legal services in United Kingdom, it’s important to ensure you’ve met all the legal requirements. Our legal team specialises in helping small businesses with all their legal needs, from contracts to intellectual property protection and privacy. Get in touch today!
To establish a legal services business in the UK, you will need to prepare and register a variety of legal documents. Key requirements include:
- Registering your business name with Companies House (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house).
- Obtaining Employers' Liability Insurance and business insurance (e.g., public liability, professional indemnity).
- Securing Local Authority approval (if operating from a commercial premise) and a lease agreement (if renting premises).
- Having Health and Safety policies and procedures in place, compliant with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines (https://www.hse.gov.uk/).
- Complying with privacy and data protection policies and procedures, in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (https://ico.org.uk/).
- Registering for a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) number and, if applicable, for Value Added Tax (VAT).
- Ensuring your lawyers are qualified to provide legal advice in the UK (e.g., law degree, Legal Practice Course (LPC), or Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC), and completing a period of recognised training).
- Having strong terms and conditions that customers agree to before they further engage with your business. This will allow you to limit liability for certain matters.
Your IP is often the key to your business' success. In a software or technology business, it's important to keep your IP secure. To effectively protect your creative works, you'll need to understand the type of IP you intend to keep secure and the specific process required.
Copyright protection applies automatically to creative, original works in the United Kingdom (however, you may still wish to display copyright disclaimers for clarity!).
For further legal protection, you can also register a trade mark with IP United Kingdom. This lists your IP on an online register and prevents other people from using it - so it's officially and legally yours.
There is also the option to patent your IP, but there is a very specific criteria for doing so. Our IP lawyers can guide you through your options.
It's always important for a business to have strong terms and conditions (T&Cs) that are tailored to their specific requirements. T&Cs essentially set out the terms that customers must agree to before they further engage with your business.
If you're an online legal platform, this is even more beneficial as it allows you to monitor activity on your website and limit your liability for things that go wrong.
Overall, it allows both you and customers to be on the same page about rights, responsibilities and expectations around the services you're providing.
