The Bar Council has warned against a “Big Bang” approach when introducing Alternative Business Structures (ABS).
The Bar Council welcomed the extra competition ABS would provide but advised “caution”, in its response to the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) May 2009 discussion paper on ABS and the liberalisation of the legal services market in line with the Clementi Review: Wider Access, Better Value, Strong Protection.
The barristers’ professional body said it was “less optimistic” than the LSB about the possible consequences of introducing the changes and saw “risks as well as benefits”. In particular, it predicted “tension” between promoting competition and liberalising the market on the one hand and actually improving the ability of citizens to pursue legal remedies and defences on the other.
It advised an “incremental” approach to change, so that the licensing regime could learn from and adapt to changes as they occurred rather than “playing catch-up”. This would also ensure that the “public interest is properly protected”.
There was “no proper evidential basis” for the assumption that liberalisation would
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