Legal Services Board

The government is planning to slash unnecessary red tape around the regulation of legal services, it has emerged. The Red Tape Challenge – a government-wide initiative to cut the 21,000 regulations currently in force in the UK – will spotlight legal services in June.

The Legal Services Board has stepped into the controversy around the International Monetary Fund’s push to make countries receiving financial bailouts reform their legal professions as part of the deal.

The Legal Services Board’s “unduly detailed approach to oversight” risks undermining professional independence, the Law Society president has claimed. John Wotton also argued that alternative business structures have “no magic bullet in competitive terms”.

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 Legal Services Board, Bar Council and 10 top law firms have signed the government’s ‘Business Compact’ on social mobility to end the “who you know, not what you know” culture, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced.

The government review of the “continuing need for the functions and the form” of the Legal Services Board and Office for Legal Complaints began yesterday with a call for evidence. It will take up to six months to complete.

It is not necessary to use a legally qualified professional to prepare a will, the British Bankers Association has insisted. It said a bank’s in-house unit “produces just as satisfactory a service as a firm of solicitors regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority”.

The Legal Services Board has activated statutory powers that require the Law Society to provide monthly reports on whether it is complying with rules that are meant to ensure the independence of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The Legal Services Board is in the first tranche of quangos subject to a new triennial review process, Cabinet Office minister Frances Maude announced last week. It will review whether the board’s functions are required and other tests of continuing relevance.

The Legal Services Board is planning to reduce its levy on the legal profession by 9% next year, it announced yesterday while outlining its plans for 2012/13 and wider strategic objectives for the next three years.

The Legal Ombudsman should have jurisdiction over non-lawyer employment advisers as part of work to improve consumer protection in the field, employment judges have suggested. Their primary concern was the lack of consistency in the redress available to claimants.

The Legal Services Board is joining forces with the Ministry of Justice and the Law Society to ask 2,000 high street law firms how ready they are for the introduction of alternative business structures. It will form part of what is likely to be the largest ever survey of high street legal provision.

In a robust defence of the will-writing industry, Steve Jenkins of leading provider Trust Inheritance argues that while some targeted regulation of the sector could help, there needs to be a strong focus on improving the quality of solicitors’ work.

The Legal Services Board is to intervene in the high-profile Supreme Court case on whether the right to claim legal professional privilege should extend beyond the clients of solicitors and barristers. The Prudential case concerns tax law advice from accountants.

Our regular round-up of news you need to know includes the appeal court quashing an ILEX disciplinary ruling, delays for solicitors renewing practising certificates, a survey of young drivers on referral fees, a survey finding support for outsourcing and much more besides.