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Consumers believe regulators ensure they have protections when buying legal services – although they don’t really know what they are – and are content to pay extra for them, a survey of users’ perceptions has found. But they also expect lawyers to provide better information about their rights.

Legal regulators have failed to open up their professional registers containing disciplinary information to price comparison websites, despite having been instructed to do so by the Legal Services Board, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has complained.

The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority will tomorrow be asked to confirm an outcomes-focused approach to implementing the referral fee ban, along with a commitment to develop guidance “as our knowledge of different schemes increases” – although this will fall short of ‘safe harbour’ advice.

The Legal Services Board and Legal Services Consumer Panel have thrown their weight behind Friday’s Office of Fair Trading report that urged continuing simplification of the regulatory regime for lawyers, particularly around complaints.

Personal injury firms have weathered the recession better than any other area of practice – and are far more likely to be looking for external investment than any other as well, one of the largest-ever surveys of solicitors’ firms has found. It said employment, family and corporate / commercial specialists also performed better than average.