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09 July 2020 / Jessica Clay , Lucy Williams
Issue: 7894 / Categories: Opinion , Profession , Regulatory
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Regulation beyond the echo chambers: who is listening?

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Jessica Clay & Lucy Williams, of Kingsley Napley, examine the potential for lasting legal services reform, in the light of Professor Mayson’s report

  • 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

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NEWS
The High Court’s refusal to recognise a prolific sperm donor as a child’s legal parent has highlighted the risks of informal conception arrangements, according to Liam Hurren, associate at Kingsley Napley, in NLJ this week
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Mazur may have settled questions around litigation supervision, but the profession should not simply ‘move on’, argues Jennifer Coupland, CEO of CILEX, in this week's NLJ
A simple phrase like ‘subject to references’ may not protect employers as much as they think. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, analyses recent employment cases showing how conditional job offers can still create binding contracts

An engagement ring may symbolise romance, but the courts remain decidedly practical about who keeps it after a split, writes Mark Pawlowski, barrister and professor emeritus of property law at the University of Greenwich, in this week's NLJ

Medical reporting organisation fees have become ‘the final battleground’ in modern costs litigation, says Kris Kilsby, costs lawyer at Peak Costs and council member of the Association of Costs Lawyers, in this week's NLJ
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