Regulating legal services is a tricky game, as John Gould, senior partner, Russell-Cooke, writes in this week’s NLJ
He looks at two recent controversies—the rise, fall and fatal collapse of Axiom Ince, and concern about SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation).
On the fallout from Axiom Ince, Gould writes: ‘It has been suggested that more than £60,000,000 may have been lost… The impact on very large numbers of clients and employees is likely to be substantial and the damage to public confidence, severe.’
He examines what went wrong and whether the current system is sufficiently geared to cope with an Axiom Ince-style collapse. On SLAPPs, on the other hand, the regulatory difficulties are more to do with definition. Gould writes that there are no ‘easy choices’.
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