Legal Services Act

The latest in our series of extracts from Climate Change, a report on the impact of the Legal Services Act published by accountants Baker Tilly, considers what kinds of law firms might float and the impact it could have on the practice and staff

The Legal Services Board is expected take over responsibility for overseeing the regulation of immigration advisers by the legal professional bodies from the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), starting in April 2011.

Universities minister David Willetts has expressed interest in aptitude testing as a way to address “inequities in earlier educational experience” for those looking to enter the professions, it has emerged. The news comes as a survey released today shows that having a public school education makes it seven times more likely you will become a legal professional than if you are state-educated.

Mandatory quality assurance for criminal advocates is welcome but the scheme currently proposed by the legal profession falls short in several significant ways, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today. Among the problems are a failure to consider consumer needs, weaker standards than had been consulted on, and allowing advocates to choose which cases they are assessed on.

There is a strong case for some lawyers facing periodic reaccreditation and for creating a single badge to help consumers distinguish between regulated and unregulated providers, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said in a report published today. Responding to a request from the Legal Services Board for consumer perspectives on quality, the panel drew on consumer research it commissioned and found support for lawyers undergoing “a regular MOT”.

National law firm group QualitySolicitors (QS) is opening 54 new branches across England and Wales on Thursday, including what it says is the first ever legal store in a shopping centre. Claiming the store will be “the start of a revolution in legal services”, QualitySolicitors Freeman Harris in Lewisham shopping centre, south London, will offer free initial consultations, late-night opening on Thursdays as well as weekend opening, and fixed-priced services, including “instant wills” drafted while clients finish their shopping.

The chief executive of the Legal Services Board (LSB) has issued a robust defence of its plans to require every firm and chambers to carry out and publish an annual workforce diversity survey. Chris Kenny confirmed that the LSB was not talking about imposing quotas or targets, nor publishing a sector-wide league table, but said such information “will enable individuals and researchers to better hold firms to account through highlighting the best and worst performers – and the nature of the gap between them”.

The independence of the legal profession from government is under threat from Whitehall, Legal Services Consumer Panel chairwoman Dr Dianne Hayter warned on Saturday. Speaking at the Bar Council annual conference, Dr Hayter revealed that the Legal Services Board (LSB), Legal Ombudsman and consumer panel have all been told to close their websites, while she highlighted the threat from legislation that will allow government to abolish or amend the terms of the LSB.

The government is set to take forward Lord Young’s proposals to extend the road traffic claims process to all low-value personal injury and clinical negligence cases, while the Jackson reforms are imminent, the Ministry of Justice confirmed today.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) should be the sole regulator for advocacy, the chairman of the Legal Services Board has said. Speaking at a BSB-organised session at Saturday’s Bar Council annual conference in London, David Edmonds said he agreed with the Master of Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who had earlier told the conference that the number of regulators “all regulating [advocacy] is ridiculous” and that if the 2007 Legal Services Act “does not lead to activity-based regulation, it will have failed”.

Legal services is one of the markets most failing UK consumers, with bankers and insurers among those doing a better job, pioneering European Union research has revealed. Lawyers are just ahead of second-hand car salesmen, however. The Legal Services Consumer Panel has branded the results “embarrassing” and said lawyers will have to up their game significantly if they are to resist competition from alternative business structures.

Is it time for solicitors to panic? The significance of the announcement that the AA and Saga have launched legal services websites is less in what they are offering but in the fact that they are the latest big brands to see potential in the legal market.

The Legal Ombudsman service needs to work out the limits of its jurisdiction “and quickly”, as new business models emerge, chief ombudsman Adam Sampson has said. Mr Sampson said that with the pace of legal services reform accelerating and the legal services market “rapidly moving away from a reliance on the high street solicitor” and towards new providers entering the market “with very different business models”, it is very important to consumers that LeO is clear about what is and is not within its jurisdiction.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have each pledged around £30,000 to support the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) research into the will-writing market, Legal Futures can reveal. However, the Law Society has declined to contribute, citing concerns over the impact its involvement could have on how the impartiality of the research is viewed.

The Law Society has begun laying down the red lines beyond which it will not be able to support alternative business structures (ABSs), Legal Futures can reveal. The society’s regulatory affairs board has highlighted a variety of issues that it expects to see addressed if it is to judge the arrangements for ABSs satisfactory, including effective controls on the fitness to own of prospective external owners.