IT ALL could have been so different for the duo behind Tcam Asset Management.

Having both joined Turcan Connell not long after it spun out of what was Dundas & Wilson, the long-term plan was for Alex Montgomery and Haig Bathgate to become equity partners in the well-regarded law firm their services enhanced.

As a qualified lawyer Mr Montgomery was able to fulfill that ambition but Mr Bathgate - an investment manager - was excluded because of legal sector rules that bar non-lawyers from holding ownership stakes in legal businesses.

That looked likely to change in 2010, when after much debate in the legal profession - and much lobbying from former Turcan Connell chairman Douglas Connell - the Scottish Government approved a form of so-called alternative business structure.

Yet when the legislation governing how such structures would work in practice failed to transpire, Mr Montgomery and Mr Bathgate made the decision to set up on their own and in 2015 Tcam Asset Management was born.

Now that firm is once again set to become part of a larger entity, after agreeing a deal with London-based investment business 7IM, which both Mr Bathgate and Mr Montgomery will have equity stakes in.

In the meantime, while the Scottish Government has said the Law Society of Scotland can regulate what are now being referred to as licensed legal service providers, it has not yet authorised it to do so.

The question is, with firms like Tcam finding different ways of operating over the past eight years, will there be any left to regulate when it does?