Legal Services Board

Unnecessary restrictions on in-house lawyers could “impose costs and red tape, frustrate innovation and adversely affect access to justice”, the Legal Services Board has argued.

The profession’s regulators are not doing enough to understand the consumers of lawyers’ services, the Legal Services Board has warned. But it said there has been progress since the first assessment in 2012/13.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to remain on report over its performance in licensing alternative business structures until it outlines how it will stop making “disproportionate” requests for information from applicants, it has emerged.

Regulators need to do more with the diversity data they now collect in order to drive improvements in recruitment and particularly progression and retention within the profession, the Legal Services Board will shortly say.

The Legal Services Board has given its blessing to the end of the “arbitrary” hours-based continuous professional development scheme for solicitors.

There needs to be an independent review of the operation of the legal market to investigate whether the Legal Services Act 2007 is working and why fees have not fallen in the light of greater competition, the Lord Chief Justice said today.

Failure to undertake continuous professional development will be an “aggravating factor” when enforcement decisions are made against those guilty of incompetence, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said.

The Legal Services Board still has “concerns” about the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority approves applications for alternative business structures and will not be ending its monitoring for the time being, it has emerged.

Four criminal law barristers have appealed to the Supreme Court in their judicial review of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) – despite a costs bill which already totals £215,000, Legal Futures can reveal.

Sir Michael Pitt, chairman of the Legal Services Board, said yesterday that he wanted to present the new government after next year’s general election with an agreed “range of options” for the future of regulation.

There is set to be increased turbulence in the legal market, with more new entrants, consolidation and the exit of those who cannot adapt, the strategy director of the Legal Services Board has predicted.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel today expressed concerned that “the recent emphasis on deregulation… is being taken too far”, while also praising the innovation seen to date through alternative business structures.

Vanessa Davies, director of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), has apologised “for any impression that may have been created that we do not take our regulatory obligations seriously” after the BSB failed to launch a review of the standard contractual terms and the cab rank rule.

The potential for unbundling legal services to help consumers – and particularly litigants in person – is to be examined in a research project being commissioned by the Legal Services Board and Legal Services Consumer Panel.

The Bar Standards Board has doubled its prediction of how many entities it expects to be overseeing by the end of 2015 after receiving Legal Services Board approval to regulate businesses.