Legal Services Board

Government under fire for will-writing decision as few express faith in voluntary regulation

Legal Futures conference April 2012

Criticism of the government’s decision not to regulate will-writing continued yesterday – although the two bodies representing the will-writing community appeared at odd over the prospects of self-regulation succeeding.

May 16th, 2013

Government says ‘no’ to will-writing regulation

Chris Grayling

The government has today rejected the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) recommendation that will-writing become a reserved legal activity. There had been near-unanimous support from legal and consumer groups for the move.

May 14th, 2013

LSB director questions independence of frontline regulators from the lawyers they oversee

Crispin Passmore

The influence of lawyers and professional bodies on their frontline regulators is the biggest risk to independent regulation in the law, the strategy director of the Legal Services Board has claimed. Crispin Passmore said a combination of factors led him to “worry how independent regulation actually is”.

May 3rd, 2013

Flood stokes cab-rank rule argument

John Flood

The row over Legal Services Board-commissioned research that recommended removal of the cab-rank rule stepped up a further notch yesterday after one of the academics who conducted it hit back at the critiques published by the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board.

May 1st, 2013

Bringing all legal advice into regulatory net may resolve consumer confusion, says LSB chief

Chris Kenny

The status quo over reserved and unreserved legal activities is unsustainable and the answer may be for all legal advice to be regulated, the chief executive of the Legal Services Board has suggested.

April 30th, 2013

New duty to support growth should not allow regulators to block “risky business models”

Chris Kenny

A proposed statutory duty on frontline regulators to consider economic growth must not be used to probe the business plans of new entrants to the market or block “risky business models”, the Legal Services Board has cautioned.

April 25th, 2013

Legal Services Board to keep up pressure on SRA over ABS licences

Samantha Barrass new

The Legal Services Board is to keep the performance of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in issuing alternative business structure licences under scrutiny, it has emerged. We have discovered that in January it issued a statutory notice requiring the SRA to provide information.

April 18th, 2013

LSB approves new approach to qualifying as a chartered legal executive

ILEX Presidential Luncheon, Commonwealth ClubPictures by Jonathan Goldberg

A new outcomes-focused approach to becoming a chartered legal executive, which could also cut the time it takes to qualify by reducing the ‘time served’ aspect of the process, has been approved by the Legal Services Board.

April 11th, 2013

LSB hits back strongly at critics

David_Edmonds_web

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has hit back at its critics, accusing frontline legal regulators of being “uncomfortable” with the language of competition and failing to examine the impact of regulation on the market.

April 4th, 2013

LSB tells SRA: liberalisation of local authority solicitors charging for work does not go far enough

SRA reception sign

The Legal Services Board has criticised the Solicitors Regulation Authority for restricting liberalisation of the rule that previously prevented local authorities from charging charities and voluntary organisations for legal services.

April 3rd, 2013