Background

In Henderson & Jones Ltd v Wilcocks Contractors Ltd & Anor [2026] EWCC 44, the claimant purchased a debt and commenced proceedings to recover it.

The claimant’s business included litigation funding and the acquisition of claims. The defendants resisted the claim and, in response to the claimant’s application for summary judgment and/or strike out, advanced numerous arguments, one of which concerned the Legal Services Act 2007 (“LSA 2007”).

The defendants argued that, for a substantial period of the proceedings, the claimant had conducted the litigation through its own employees rather than solicitors. They contended that this amounted to the unauthorised conduct of reserved legal activities under the LSA 2007 and raised factual issues which, they said, made the matter unsuitable for summary judgment.

 

The Law

The defendants relied on the provisions of the LSA 2007, which identifies the conduct of litigation as a reserved legal activity. They submitted that issuing proceedings, filing pleadings, corresponding with the court and other procedural steps constituted reserved legal activities that could only lawfully be carried out by authorised or exempt persons.

It was argued that employees of the claimant had undertaken these activities before solicitors were formally instructed. The defendants maintained that this potentially rendered procedural steps unlawful and required disclosure and factual investigation before the issue could be determined. They also relied upon the developing jurisprudence following Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys, submitting that the legal position remained unsettled.

The claimant relied principally on section 15(4) of the LSA 2007. That provision distinguishes between businesses providing reserved legal services to the public and businesses acting solely on their own behalf. The claimant argued that it was not a law firm, did not hold itself out as providing legal services and was merely pursuing its own proprietary claim after purchasing the debt.

Accordingly, any litigation conducted by its employees fell within the statutory exception because the claimant was not providing relevant legal services to the public.

 

The Decision

The court rejected the defendants’ submissions.

The judge held that section 15(4) was clear and directly applicable. The claimant was not carrying on the business of providing legal services to the public. Instead, it acquired debts and claims for commercial purposes and sought to recover them in its own name. In pursuing a claim it owned, it was acting as any corporate litigant would when enforcing its own rights.

The court found there was no genuine factual dispute about the claimant’s business model. Although it purchased and funded claims for profit, that commercial activity did not amount to providing legal services to members of the public. The claimant had never presented itself as a law firm and had not acted on behalf of external clients.

The judge concluded that the claimant litigated its own cause of action through its employees in the same way that any company may conduct litigation on its own behalf. Such conduct fell within the statutory exception in section 15(4), meaning that the activities undertaken by its employees did not contravene the LSA.

The court also rejected the submission that disclosure or further factual investigation was required. In the judge’s view, the statutory provisions were clear to determine the issue without additional evidence. The defendants therefore had no real prospect of succeeding on this point, and it did not provide a compelling reason for refusing summary judgment.

The judge further observed that accepting the defendants’ interpretation would produce an absurd result by preventing companies from litigating their own claims through employees unless they instructed external solicitors in every case. That was not the purpose or effect of the legislation.

 

Conclusion

The decision confirms that a company pursuing a claim which it owns is not, without more, providing legal services to the public. A business that acquires debts or claims and enforces them in its own name is acting on its own behalf rather than carrying on reserved legal activities for others.

It confirms that corporate litigants may conduct their own litigation through employees where they are enforcing their own rights, and that doing so does not amount to providing relevant legal services to the public.