Intensive lobbying and government backtracking have transformed the Legal Services Act, says Simon Young
The Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007) received Royal Assent on 30 October 2007, and the scene was set for what is arguably going to be the most fundamental change ever in the structure of the provision of legal services.
Previous articles in this journal (see 156 NLJ 7238, pp 1304–06, 7239, pp 1351–52 and 7240, pp 1391–93) set the scene by outlining the main provisions in the Bill at a relatively early stage in its life. Followers of the legislative process will, however, have been fascinated by the number and scope of the late changes made to the Bill, mostly at the behest of the government. The surprising thing about this was that many of those changes were reversals of previous government policy, even though there had been previous defeats of opposition-led amendments. It was an unusual instance of a government which had clearly listened to a sustained period of well-argued lobbying by many—not least the
