Legal Services Act

Non-clients should have a general right to complain about lawyers – such as parties affected by delays in the conveyancing process and beneficiaries of a defective will – the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today.

A “disruptive” services procurement platform that allows small and medium-sized businesses to put out tenders to an expert community and manage them, all via the cloud, is set to enter the legal market.

Many of the regulations underpinning the regulatory regime for legal services – including those designating the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Council for Licensed Conveyancers as ABS licensing authorities – are under the microscope as part of the government’s Red Tape Challenge, it has emerged.

The country’s largest specialist debt law firm – which went live a few weeks ago – is on the acquisition trail and is also open to the idea of outside investment, its chief executive has revealed. Drydensfairfax is exactly the kind of firms investors are said to be keen on.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a bid to regulate non-lawyer immigration advisers. However, at the same time the body that oversees them – the Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner – is seeking to take over the regulation of specialist lawyers.

There are signs that consumer power is starting to take a grip in the legal services market as more people shop around and demand fixed-fee deals, the Legal Services Consumer Panel reports today. However, the YouGov survey shows that the wider economic picture is affecting the use of legal services.

Law firms are to have an extra year before they must publish staff diversity data, after the Legal Services Board approved Solicitors Regulation Authority plans for a delay. But it was unhappy with the Bar Standards Board’s proposal to exempt chambers of fewer than 10 people.

The rapid expansion of Riverview Law continued today with the announcement that it has opened its first international office in New York in a bid to give overseas businesses and law firms direct access to English barristers.

The Law Society has called on the Legal Services Board to reject changes to the cab-rank rule in the latest stage of the long-running saga over standard contractual terms between barristers and solicitors. The society said they would have an “anti-competitive effect.

The first will-writer to be granted an alternative business structure (ABS) licence says she hopes others will follow suit so as to “level the playing field” with solicitors. Parchment Law Group became the seventh ABS last Friday.

Law firms, chambers, regulators and other legal bodies which sign up to the official British Standard on dealing with vulnerable consumers are to have their commitment celebrated publicly on the website of the Legal Services Consumer Panel.

Eighteen solicitors were sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal last year for breaches of anti-money laundering obligations, the Law Society has reported. It has also identified alternative business structures as among the increased risks of money laundering facing the profession.

There are signs that lawyers are getting better at handling complaints but also still failing to signpost their clients to the Legal Ombudsman, the chief ombudsman has said. Both could help explain why complaint volumes are lower than had been planned for.

A Buckinghamshire-based will-writing company has today become the latest recipient of an alternative business structure licence. Parchment Wills & Legal Services Ltd of Gerrards Cross is a founder member of the Institute of Professional Willwriters.

A niche property law firm in Oxfordshire has become the sixth alternative business structure to be licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Its senior partner said becoming an ABS gives the firm “additional flexibility in terms of structuring our business”.