Consumer panel

Law firms and alternative business structures should not be allowed to dodge regulation by establishing separate businesses to handle unreserved work, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said this week. The panel also appeared to rebuke Co-operative Legal Services – whose stated intention is to be one of the first ABSs – for calling for freedom in how businesses choose to provide unreserved work.

Barristers going into competition with solicitors to offer litigation services could reduce costs and make services “more efficient for consumers through packaged delivery”, the voice of legal consumers has said. The Legal Services Consumer Panel also backed the Bar Standards Board as the sole regulator of advocacy services.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has slated the suggestion by the Legal Services Board that approved regulators should collect and publish all referral agreements between introducers and lawyers, which the SRA estimates run to many thousands.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is opposing the regulation of will-writers, saying it may well be disproportionate and unnecessary. It has also emerged that the OFT is working with the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Institute of Professional Will-writers to improve advice to consumers on executor services.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board are set to launch a “legal services stakeholder network”, to give the public a direct say in how legal services are regulated, Legal Futures can reveal.

The Bar’s regulator has blasted the Legal Services Board for not doing enough to avoid the risk of abuse by solicitors of lawyer-to-lawyer referrals – and warned that they may fall foul of the 2010 Bribery Act.

Half of charities have experienced a poorly drafted will from a will-writer, a new survey has revealed – but a third have also seen shoddy work from a solicitor. A survey of over 50 charities by Remember A Charity found unanimous support for regulation of the will-writing sector.

The Legal Services Board has unveiled plans to ‘mystery shop’ solicitors and will-writers as part of its research into the market – and is looking for a panel of both to assess the quality of what is produced.

A decision by the Legal Services Board (LSB) on whether will-writing should become a regulated activity will not be made until 2012, it emerged today. The LSB’s draft business plan 2011/12, published today for consultation, revealed that the board is also considering what it calls a “deep dive” investigation of conveyancing.

Mandatory quality assurance for criminal advocates is welcome but the scheme currently proposed by the legal profession falls short in several significant ways, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today. Among the problems are a failure to consider consumer needs, weaker standards than had been consulted on, and allowing advocates to choose which cases they are assessed on.