Barristers

Regulators should empower consumers to drive improvements in the quality of legal services, while professional indemnity insurers could hand over firm-specific claims data to help target poorly performing practices, the Legal Services Board has suggested.

More common training of would-be lawyers, sector-wide CPD, and scrapping the training contract and pupillage, are among the “more radical” options being considered by the Legal Education and Training Review, according to its first discussion paper, issued yesterday.

Our latest round-up of news includes Fisher Meredith winning an appeal against a big wasted costs order, SRA figures on the number of firms and solicitors, the first law firm to ‘pin’ on growing social media service Pinterest, fee income up at the largest law firms, and more.

The introduction of an aptitude test for prospective Bar students may be premature – and in any case fails to address the “real issue” of the mismatch between student numbers and training contracts/pupilages – the Law Society has told the Bar Standards Board.

Barristers and solicitors are at loggerheads over whether plea-only advocates need to undergo judicial evaluation as part of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. If a resolution cannot be found, then the whole scheme could fall apart.

Providing immigration advice and services may need to become a reserved legal activity, the Legal Services Board has suggested. It found that there is likely to be “significant consumer detriment” in the way this work is being regulated at the moment.

The Legal Education and Training Review needs to be radical and permanently separate authorisation to practise from professional titles, the chairman of the Legal Services Board said this week.

The Bar Standards Board has launched its final scheme for regulating advocacy-focused alternative business structures in what it described as a “declaration of intent” to become the regulator of choice for advocates.

Divisions over quality assurance for advocates have deepened after solicitors were advised not to take part in a Bar Standards Board survey on the issue, while specialist Bar associations have been urged to oppose QASA as well.

The proposed Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates threatens the independence of advocates, a senior judge claimed yesterday. Lord Justice Moses argued that quality of advocacy is best assured through compulsory training and more active reporting of poor advocates by judges.

Lawyers were this week told not to be discouraged from embracing social media after a barrister who was among the legal pioneers on Twitter was fined for messages he posted on the service. However, the case does raise questions over the role of regulators in policing lawyers’ activity on Twitter.

Barristers are showing only “cautious interest” in alternative business structures, although they are keener on barrister-only entities, according to a major survey released yesterday. It also found a “worrying lack of optimisim” in the profession.

The time is coming when the distinction between solicitors and barristers will be “more a matter of tribal culture than function”, the Law Society president has predicted, with common education, training and even potentially regulation on the agenda.

The long-running saga over standard contractual terms between barristers and solicitors has hit another hurdle after the Legal Services Board issued a statutory warning notice that it is considering whether to reject changes to the cab-rank rule that would underpin them.

The Bar Standards Board is to conduct a review of the massive growth in complaints made against barristers by litigants in person – although it said this is likely to be caused by legal aid cuts.