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08 June 2012 / David Greene
Issue: 7517 / Categories: Opinion , Legal services
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If the price is right

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David Greene warns of the danger of focusing on the cost of legal services

The Legal Services Board in its research note into the legal services market, published in August 2011, highlighted the advantages that alternative business structures (ABSs) would bring to the provision of legal services. There are distributed throughout the document references to the commoditisation and standardisation of legal services. David Edmonds, the chief executive of the Legal Services Board (LSB), has been recently speaking to the Law Society and at other events about the development of legal services now that the Legal Services Act 2007 has come into full effect.

Tesco law

Edmonds does not step back from a forthright approach to the advantages of commoditisation of services both for consumers and those providing legal services. Commoditisation has become summed up in common parlance as “Tesco law”. Edmonds may not put it so broadly, but some might say that the changes to provision of legal services are long overdue and are to the complete advantage of the consumer.

Consumer

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