Professional Plus, the legal IT consultancy, has gone into administration. The following notice has been issued by joint administrators Kevin Brown and Anthony Hyams of Marriotts LLP

Professional Plus...

Asking price: Undisclosed
Sales revenue: Undisclosed
Net profit: Undisclosed
Fixtures value: Undisclosed
Stock value: Undisclosed

Offer for sale the business and assets of this software system designer. Principle features include – An established business development software house turning-over circa £400k pa including; the developed software and design rights to BCon Business Continuity communications framework software, and Info plus Web Intelligence tool

For further information contact: Marriotts LLP, Allan House, 10 John Princes Street, London, W1G 0AH - Tel: 0207 495 2348 - Fax: 0207 495 2318 - Email: thyams@marriottsllp.co.uk

Professional Plus was set up by Colin Morris in 1999, originally to provide IT implementation services in the legal sector – the company was heavily involved in the original Keystone PMS project at Clifford Chance, Morris having previously been the manager for Keystone's UK operations since 1996. The company subsequently moved into software development however earlier this summer Morris left Professional Plus.

So are legal IT consultancies finding it difficult to remain in business as independent organisations? Are we even about to see the IRISisation of this market? It's already happened in the US, with two of the better known names – Hildebrandt and Baker Robbins – being acquired by the Thomson Group and over here in the UK Tikit has acquired 3 consultancies in the PMS, CRM and KM sectors. Earlier this week another UK consultancy told The Orange Rag that they had just been approached by a consultancy looking for someone to buy its business. As the md of one consultancy put it "I think it adds to a trend of pure consultancies finding life difficult. Not because of lack of business but because of competition and shifting market trends and the ability to keep up. We certainly need multiple revenue sources to make the whole thing work well and have to constantly invest in R & D."