Legal Executives

Statutory guidance that requires legal regulators to move away from assuming would-be lawyers have to spend a certain amount of time training before they qualify was published yesterday by the Legal Services Board.

Key players in the legal profession have welcomed the second phase of a government-backed scheme that will create apprenticeships which for the first time will lead to qualification as a solicitor, while a new apprenticeship in conveyancing will also be developed.

The frontline regulators will be required to have lay chairs in future after the Legal Services Board (LSB) pressed ahead with its controversial change to the internal governance rules.

The legal challenge to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is not yet dead after it emerged that the claimants have gone to the Court of Appeal to seek permission to appeal.

The Legal Services Board’s consultation on its plan to oblige frontline regulators to have lay chairs has met a barrage of opposition from regulators and lawyers, pitted against consumer advocates, which strongly backed the measure.

Responses to the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) legal education and training framework have revealed broad opposition to its proposal to invoke statutory powers to ensure frontline regulators fall into line behind the LSB’s vision.

The first registration deadline for the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has been extended again, the Joint Advocacy Group announced today. However, it will not be delaying the scheme to await the outcome of the Jeffrey review of criminal advocacy.

The frontline legal regulators yesterday launched a groundbreaking consumer-facing information website that aims to demystify the legal profession for ordinary people.

Chartered legal executives are set to have full parity with solicitors after the Legal Services Board gave them the right to practise litigation and advocacy independently.

Competition in the law is to increase further after the Legal Services Board backed accountants to handle reserved probate work and set up alternative business structures, as well as chartered legal executives to set up their own conveyancing and probate practices.

It was third time unlucky for a solicitor whose striking-off had twice been overturned by the High Court, as Mr Justice Mostyn yesterday rejected his challenge to the latest decision to remove him from the roll.

he barristers seeking to have the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) declared unlawful have lost a bid to reduce their costs exposure. Mr Justice Bean refused to amend the protective costs order granted earlier this month by Mr Justice Ouseley.

The Law Society has been granted permission to intervene in the judicial review of the legality of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA). The society said it is intervening in the case “in the best interests of all advocates”.

The ex-City lawyer chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has questioned the recruitment methods of City law firms in making university students decide to become commercial lawyers so early on in their legal careers.

Legal regulators should in future rate the risk that firms present to the public on the basis of the diversity of their workforce, and focus supervision on those with the worst records, according to a report.