Regulation beyond the echo chambers: who is listening?

• Legal services framework reform: exploring realistic and immediate options.
• A ‘make-do’ situation: small steps towards change.

Now submitted to the Lord Chancellor, Professor Stephen Mayson’s report, ‘Reforming Legal Services: Regulation beyond the echo chambers’ is the culmination of a two-year independent review into the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. Mayson consulted almost 350 interested parties and sought insight from individuals on an Advisory Panel, including our colleague Iain Miller.

Mayson refers to the current regulatory framework as ‘incomplete’ and ‘limited’ and ‘not able in the near-term and beyond to meet the demands and expectations placed on it’, particularly with the emergence and rapid development of alternative providers and lawtech. Mayson sets out 46 long-term recommendations, which seek to create a ‘level playing field’ for legal services and enhance consumer protection, through ‘targeted and proportionate regulation’.

These recommendations