Legal Services Board

The Legal Services Board has said the Bar Standards Board now meets the standard it set for improving the quality of advocacy – unlike the Solicitors Regulation Authority and CILEx Regulation.

The Bar Standards Board has decided to stop funding Legal Choices, the consumer-facing website which until now has been collectively run and paid for by all the legal regulators.

The Legal Service Board might develop targets for improving the “legal capability” of consumers and review the frontline regulators’ work on public legal education, in its first push in the area.

The Legal Services Board has approved the change in the standard of proof used by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal from the criminal to the civil standard.

The Legal Services Board has finalised revised rules to ensure clearer separation of regulatory and representative functions at bodies like the Law Society and Bar Council.

The Legal Services Board has approved a new rule requiring chambers to include sexual orientation and religion in the diversity data they publish on their websites, whether or not all of their barristers agree.

Achieving buy-in for technology regulation from everyone involved in lawtech – from developers to users – is crucial to it working well, according to an analysis looking at the lessons for legal regulators that can be drawn from the medical and financial sectors.

A key aspect of tech is its potential to help lawyers sell to consumers as part of a multi-disciplinary package that includes unrelated services, where the ‘legal’ part is invisible to the purchaser.

Alternative business structures continue to have a “direct and positive impact” on the legal market, the oversight regulator has said, while there are “signs of improvement” at the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Services Board is set to begin work on a a review of continuing competence that will revisit the possibility of formal periodic reaccreditation for lawyers.