Legal Executives

Introduction of the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has been delayed, it was announced today. It was meant to start at the end of January, but no new date has now been set as more details are worked out.

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has told the regulators it oversees that now is the time for them to prove they can deliver what is expected of them, warning that it will put their promises “to the test”. The LSB said its focus in 2013/14 will be on the performance of the regulators.

Thousands of law firms are set to contribute £1.4m to the Legal Ombudsman after the government confirmed that they will no longer be eligible for two ‘free’ complaints every year. Meanwhile, LeO has not ruled out entertaining complaints by third parties, such as against the opposing party’s lawyer.

The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) should recruit a high-powered team of young lawyers to vet its proposals and provide fresh insights into the future of the legal marketplace, Professor Richard Susskind has urged.

Vulnerable asylum seekers are at risk of “serious detriment” from a complex asylum process and potentially “sloppy” work by immigration advisers, according to the Legal Services Consumer Panel.

It is solicitors, and not barristers, who are to blame for the decline in advocacy standards that has led to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), the Bar Council has claimed, while also strongly opposing the creation of ‘plea-only advocates’.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will drive many solicitors out of criminal law, the Law Society has warned. It is the latest hostile response to the final consultation on the scheme ahead of its introduction in January.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is unlawful, unnecessary and unworkable and will be judicially reviewed if it goes ahead, criminal law barristers will warn this week in a response to the final consultation seen by this website.

A new survey, commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx), aims to understand better the levels of satisfaction legal professionals have with their current regulator, and how regulatory bodies might improve services to those they regulate. This survey,… Read More

The reservation of will-writing and estate administration should boost the amount of work and allow existing providers such as solicitors to become more competitive, the Legal Services Board said today as it laid out how the regime will work.

The chairman of the Bar Council has called for a last stand against several “objectionable” elements of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates or else they will form part of similar schemes planned for all areas of legal practice.

The system for training lawyers is not fit for purpose, the Legal Education and Training Review research team has suggested. The team of academics floated a series of ideas that in some instances would represent radical reform of the present regime.

The process of enabling chartered legal executives to set up their own practices has begun with their regulator looking for the power to award them rights to conduct litigation, conveyancing and probate without needing the supervision of a solicitor.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board have been warned to improve the way they regulate immigration practitioners or risk enforcement action by the Legal Services Board – including the ultimate sanction of losing their ability to regulate the area at all.

The absence of independent practice rights for chartered legal executives has created a series of “absurdities” and there is no sensible reason to deny those rights, the incoming president of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives has claimed.