The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is to start accepting applications for alternative business structures (ABS) in the New Year, with its first ABSs potentially going live towards the end of February 2012.

The SRA will start accepting applications from 3 January, after the order designating the SRA as a licensing authority for ABSs went before Parliament today (1 December) and will come into force from 23 December.

The SRA said depending on the complexity of the first applications received, it expects to announce the first successful applicants in the second half of February.

The approval paves the way for the SRA to authorise law firms converting to an ABS by seeking external investment and corporate setting up their own legal services arms.

It comes after Parliamentary delays pushed back the planned implementation date of 6 October 2011.

SRA chief executive Antony Townsend (pictured) said: "We welcome the news that we will become an ABS licensing authority from 23 December. This is a milestone that we have been working towards for nearly two years. It means the public can have confidence that ABS providing reserved legal activities will be regulated according to the same rigorous professional standards as traditional law firms."

The introduction of ABS's comes as part of the Legal Services Act 2007, which came into force on 6 October. The Co-operative became the first major corporate to publicly state that it intends to begin to compete with high street law firms last year, while Irwin Mitchell became the first law firm to announce plans to convert.

Premier Property Lawyers became the first ABS in the UK on 6 October. The Leicester-based firm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of conveyancing services provider myhomemove, was awarded its licence by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) – the only regulator approved to license ABSs by that date.