Surprisingly, implementation of the Legal Services Act did not feature in the Coalition agreement, but we will soon get a chance to find out what the new government makes of it. As I reported yesterday, a new Cabinet committee set up to slash regulation is to scrutinise all of the impending regulation left behind by Labour, including creation of the Office for Legal Complaints and introduction of alternative business structures.

The findings of the Jures research into consumers’ enthusiasm (or not) for legal services delivered by non-legal brands has unsurprisingly received coverage and, I’m sure raised the spirits of some solicitors – and maybe encouraged a few to mutter “I told you so”. It is, of course, far too early to say that, and it strikes me that this research is good news for both sides of the fence.

If, in a post outcomes-focused regulation world, all new firms have been given a clean bill of health by their regulator, there is a case for reopening the assigned risks pool to them because there might be other, less good reasons that they have not been able to obtain insurance, particularly if they are BME firms.

Uncertainty in how rules and regulations are interpreted is the very stuff of being a lawyer, but solicitors may well be less keen on this when the uncertain rules and regulations are the ones which govern how they operate. But as Solicitors Regulation Authority chief executive Antony Townsend admitted earlier this week, that is what outcomes-focused regulation will introduce to their world.

A recent survey released by outsourcing consultancy Fronterion revealed a rising interest in onshore and hybrid on/offshore legal outsourcing arrangements. The 2010 Global Sourcing Study polled ten of the top 20 UK law firms and 17 of the world’s largest legal outsourcing vendors, and found that some 300 legal professionals in the UK currently provide onshore legal outsourcing services to UK clients.