Legal Services Board
LSB gives Bar Council a ticking off over staffing criticism
The Legal Services Board has given the Bar Council a slap on the wrist for the comments it made in a Legal Futures article about staffing levels at the oversight regulator.
LSB calls in the public to advise on policy
The Legal Services Board is to create a standing panel of members of the public to help develop future policies – in addition to its existing consumer panel.
LSB to check random sample of disciplinary decisions
The Legal Services Board is planning to review a “random sample” of regulators’ disciplinary decisions to ensure the right processes and procedures are in place.
Regulators “confirm commitment” to Legal Choices amid control dispute
Seven of the eight frontline regulators have “confirmed their continued commitment” to the Legal Choices website, despite the Solicitors Regulation Authority no longer wanting to run it.
LSB questions Bar regulator’s decision-making
The Legal Services Board is launching a formal review of the Bar Standards Board’s leadership and decision-making in the wake of its controversial decision to stop funding the Legal Choices website.
Covid-19 could herald reform of reserved legal activities
Changes to the list of reserved activities that only authorised lawyers can do has been floated as one way the ways legal regulation could be flexed to help the profession recover from the Covid-19 crisis.
Tax schemes “discourage investment” in legal start-ups
Government schemes to help SME companies grow by offering investors tax relief exclude legal businesses and so constrict technological innovation in the market, it has been claimed.
Bar Council calls on LSB not to recruit staff during crisis
The Bar Council has called on the Legal Services Board not to recruit more staff during the coronavirus crisis for the task of overseeing legal bodies’ internal governance.
Budget rejection lays bare Legal Ombudsman crisis
The Legal Ombudsman has hit crisis point again after it was forced to backtrack on its request for a 20% budget rise, with the Legal Services Board describing its performance as unacceptable.
MPs back Davies as new Legal Ombudsman chair
MPs on the justice select committee have endorsed the appointment of Elisabeth Davies as chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, the board that oversees the Legal Ombudsman.
Blog
Change in regulator shouldn’t make AML less of a priority
While SRA fines for AML have been climbing, many in the profession aren’t confident they will get any relief from the FCA, a body used to dealing with a highly regulated industry.
There are 17 million wills waiting to be written
The main reason cited by people who do not have a will was a lack of awareness as to how to arrange one. As a professional community, we seem to be failing to get our message across.
The case for a single legal services regulator: why the current system is failing
From catastrophic firm collapses to endemic compliance failures, the evidence is mounting that the current multi-regulator model is fundamentally broken.
