Legal Services Board

The Legal Services Board has issued a thinly veiled warning to the Bar Standards Board over the need to invest “substantially” in consumer information after withdrawing from funding Legal Choices.

The Legal Services Board is looking for a person with experience of “turn-around situations” to become the new chair of the Office of Legal Complaints, the board which oversees the Legal Ombudsman.

The Legal Services Board has heard calls for regulators to take a more “hands-on” approach to ensuring that lawyers remain competent through their careers.

The Legal Services Board could steal a march on the Solicitors Regulation Authority by holding at least one of its board meetings in public, it has emerged.

The Legal Services Board could start reviewing regulators’ case files to increase its oversight of the quality of their disciplinary decisions in the wake of the Leigh Day case, it has emerged.

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.