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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
She says the case exposed ‘significant flaws in the regulatory framework’ and revealed how fragile progress on diversity remains. Coupland warns that local authorities paused legal processes, law centres struggled to service vulnerable clients, and firms questioned operating models after the original ruling.
While many lawyers supported CILEX’s challenge, she says ‘old, elitist attitudes’ also resurfaced against CILEX practitioners.
Calling the judgment ‘a wake-up call’, Coupland argues regulators must modernise for ‘the reality of how legal services are delivered today’, embracing alternative routes into law and resisting vested interests that threaten a ‘thriving, diverse and competitive legal sector’.
