Legal Services Board

The £30m that the Law Society levies on solicitors for its representative work is to be put under the microscope by the Legal Services Board next year.

The Bar could be “sleep walking into a nightmare scenario” where new rules mean it has no involvement with its regulator, the incoming chairman of the Bar Council has warned.

The level of innovation in the legal market has “stagnated and fallen in some areas” in recent years, but there are a number of encouraging signs for the future, major new research has revealed.

The Legal Services Board has been told by its own consumer panel that it has to share the responsibility for ensuring that consumers do not suffer at the hands of solicitors working for unregulated firms.

The Legal Services Board has approved the new SRA Handbook, including the controversial proposal to allow solicitors to provide unreserved services to the public from unregulated businesses.

New rules which clearly limit the influence the Law Society can have on the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and the Bar Council on the Bar Standards Board, have been published.

The frontline regulators are making “very good progress” in improving price transparency, the Legal Services Board has said – but its consumer panel was far less impressed.

The Legal Services Board has stepped carefully into the debate over legal aid cuts by highlighting the increasing number of people handling legal problems alone.

The Legal Services Board has approved new rules proposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority requiring law firms to publish prices for a range of consumer and business services.

When small businesses believe they can trust the transparency of legal providers on fees, they are twice as likely to seek the advice of lawyers, according to the Legal Services Board.