Careering ahead

The Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007) has brought about a full-blooded revolution in legal services regulation. It is, in the words of the Legal Services Board (LSB), the new overarching professional regulator, to whom The Law Society and the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA), its regulatory arm is responsible, “a milestone in legal regulation”. But what does this milestone promise for women solicitors?

The new regulatory landscape

The first thing to say is that the changes promise a more rigorous regulatory approach to ensuring that the profession becomes more diverse at all levels, rather than simply at entry level which has been the primary focus to date.

The LSB is placed under an express obligation (LSA 2007, s 3) to act in a way, so far as reasonably practicable, with the regulatory objectives set out in LSA 2007, s 1. These regulatory objectives are: protecting and promoting the public interest; supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law;
improving