Legal Services Act

Non-clients should have a general right to complain about lawyers – such as parties affected by delays in the conveyancing process and beneficiaries of a defective will – the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today.

A “disruptive” services procurement platform that allows small and medium-sized businesses to put out tenders to an expert community and manage them, all via the cloud, is set to enter the legal market.

Many of the regulations underpinning the regulatory regime for legal services – including those designating the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Council for Licensed Conveyancers as ABS licensing authorities – are under the microscope as part of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, it has emerged.

The country’s largest specialist debt law firm – which went live a few weeks ago – is on the acquisition trail and is also open to the idea of outside investment, its chief executive has revealed. Drydensfairfax is exactly the kind of firms investors are said to be keen on.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a bid to regulate non-lawyer immigration advisers. However, at the same time the body that oversees them – the Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner – is seeking to take over the regulation of specialist lawyers.

There are signs that consumer power is starting to take a grip in the legal services market as more people shop around and demand fixed-fee deals, the Legal Services Consumer Panel reports today. However, the YouGov survey shows that the wider economic picture is affecting the use of legal services.

Law firms are to have an extra year before they must publish staff diversity data, after the Legal Services Board approved Solicitors Regulation Authority plans for a delay. But it was unhappy with the Bar Standards Board’s proposal to exempt chambers of fewer than 10 people.

The rapid expansion of Riverview Law continued today with the announcement that it has opened its first international office in New York in a bid to give overseas businesses and law firms direct access to English barristers.

The Law Society has called on the Legal Services Board to reject changes to the cab-rank rule in the latest stage of the long-running saga over standard contractual terms between barristers and solicitors. The society said they would have an “anti-competitive effect.

The first will-writer to be granted an alternative business structure (ABS) licence says she hopes others will follow suit so as to “level the playing field” with solicitors. Parchment Law Group became the seventh ABS last Friday.