Legal Executives

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is “not sufficiently transparent” in explaining its decisions at board level, the Legal Services Board has said, while ticking off other regulators too.

Chartered legal executives operate on a par with solicitors and it is only “professional snobbery” stopping them from being part of the solution to many current systemic problems.

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.

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.

A barrister who spent six years fruitlessly trying to obtain a pupillage has instead become an immigration practitioner as the head of her own firm, overseen by CILEx Regulation.

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.

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.

The Legal Services Board is to impose reform that will end the “different treatment” for accountancy regulators which also oversee legal services.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives is set to become the sixth body allowed to license alternative business structures after its application was approved by the Lord Chancellor.

The Legal Services Board has approved an application by CILEx Regulation to license alternative business structures, which will now go to the Lord Chancellor for a final decision. If successful, the regulator of chartered legal executives will become the sixth ABS licensing authority.