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Many of the regulations underpinning the regulatory regime for legal services – including those designating the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Council for Licensed Conveyancers as ABS licensing authorities – are under the microscope as part of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, it has emerged.

The country’s largest specialist debt law firm – which went live a few weeks ago – is on the acquisition trail and is also open to the idea of outside investment, its chief executive has revealed. Drydensfairfax is exactly the kind of firms investors are said to be keen on.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a bid to regulate non-lawyer immigration advisers. However, at the same time the body that oversees them – the Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner – is seeking to take over the regulation of specialist lawyers.

There are signs that consumer power is starting to take a grip in the legal services market as more people shop around and demand fixed-fee deals, the Legal Services Consumer Panel reports today. However, the YouGov survey shows that the wider economic picture is affecting the use of legal services.

Law firms are to have an extra year before they must publish staff diversity data, after the Legal Services Board approved Solicitors Regulation Authority plans for a delay. But it was unhappy with the Bar Standards Board’s proposal to exempt chambers of fewer than 10 people.

A government bid to slash unnecessary red tape around the regulation of legal services goes live today. As first revealed by Legal Futures in February, the Red Tape Challenge – a government-wide initiative to cut the 21,000 regulations currently in force in the UK – is spotlighting legal services.

The rapid expansion of Riverview Law continued today with the announcement that it has opened its first international office in New York in a bid to give overseas businesses and law firms direct access to English barristers.

The Law Society has called on the Legal Services Board to reject changes to the cab-rank rule in the latest stage of the long-running saga over standard contractual terms between barristers and solicitors. The society said they would have an “anti-competitive effect.

Satellite litigation may be necessary to work out the new rule on proportionality in costs, the Master of the Rolls has said, but it will be a “very small price to pay”. Lawyers were also warned that if they fail to submit a budget from next April, then it will by default comprise only court fees.

Claimant personal injury lawyers have launched a strong attack on the government’s bid to expand the RTA claims process while also cutting legal fees for work done under it. Research showed the current £1,200 is about right, with profit margins set to fall.