Legal Services Board

The “end is in sight” for the Legal Services Board (LSB) and it can be abolished in about three years’ time, the Bar’s regulator has told the government. The Bar Council stopped short of this, but said the LSB should be reined in.

The continued rise in the cost of legal services at a time when consumer wealth has fallen could be putting people off seeking legal advice, new research has suggested. The Legal Services Board report also found indications of falling quality.

Lack of compliance by law firms and chambers with the new requirements to publish information about the diversity of their staff “will in itself tell a story”, the chairman of the Legal Services Board has claimed.

Chambers with fewer than 10 staff and/or members should not have to publish the results of the diversity survey that they all have to complete this year, their regulator is to tell the Legal Services Board.

The Bar Standards Board has given way on the final outstanding issue on the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates and it is now to begin in the summer. Plea-only advocates, who had been at the centre of a major disagreement, will not have to undergo judicial assessment.

The Bar Council has attacked the Legal Services Board’s “overconfidence” and criticised its apparent desire to become a “super-regulator” rather than an oversight body. It said the LSB’s plans has ambitions to be involved in areas of activity where it should not be.

The Legal Services Consumer Panel has called upon the ongoing Legal Education and Training Review to propose a revalidation scheme for lawyers. At the same event, delegates were told that judicial evaluation in the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates is flawed.

Consumers of probate and estate administration services are significantly more satisfied when they receive their advice face to face, rather than by e-mail, post or telephone, major research has found, while those on fixed fees pay a third less than those charged by the hour.

Probate and estate administration services should become reserved legal activities, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has recommended. It follows the panel’s call last year for will-writing to be regulated as well, which sparked a formal LSB investigation into the issue.

The Law Society has warned the Legal Services Board that it is overstepping its role as an oversight body by trying to become a market regulator. The society said the board plans for the future suggested an “inappropriately proactive approach for an oversight regulator”.

The Legal Services Board has given the clearest hint yet that it is supporting the position of solicitors in the row over the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. Legal Futures also understands that the LSB is pushing the Bar Standards Board to accept a compromise.

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.

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 government has welcomed the first common framework to measure the progress of social mobility within the professions, which was launched last Friday. The social mobility toolkit was published by Professions for Good.

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.