The report ‘Reforming Legal Services: Regulation beyond the echo chambers’, published last week, is the outcome of a two-year independent review, which consulted more than 340 parties. It has been submitted to the Lord Chancellor.
It recommends
a single, sector-wide regulator of all legal providers, and a single point of
entry for complaints and redress mechanism for consumers and small businesses.
This would include providers who are currently unregulated, as well as
technology-based legal services.
Law Society
president Simon Davis said: ‘In the current climate, legal services firms need
more support, not the added burdens of a regulatory upheaval and uncertainty.
‘Those that
will be hit hardest are the smaller firms, which would have knock-on effects
for the higher proportions of BAME partners, staff and suppliers at such firms,
as well as the vulnerable clients they support. Rather than diverting time and
resource to analysing our regulatory frameworks, policy makers’ efforts should
be directed at: funding legal aid properly to ensure that everyone, not just
the well-resourced, can access justice; restoring trust in the crumbling
criminal justice system; and getting the court system and the economy up and
running, ensuring that well-run firms do not go under as a result of
COVID-19―71% of high-street firms are currently under threat.’
Sheila Kumar,
chief executive of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC), said:
‘Stretching a single regulatory framework across the full range of legal
services is not an obvious solution to the needs of a dynamic legal sector.’
While ‘it is
widely recognised that there are regulatory gaps that create risk’, the
regulatory framework needs to be flexible to ‘meet fast-moving changes such as
those associated with the development of lawtech’. She highlighted the benefits
of the specialist approach of the CLC ‘which allows a focus on the particular
risks in conveyancing and probate, delivering consumer protection through a
tailored regulatory framework’.
“Stretching a
single regulatory framework across the full range of legal services is not an
obvious solution to the needs of a dynamic legal sector. Our approach to having
different levels of qualification, cited in the report, shows the benefit of a
diversity of approaches by different regulators so allowing innovative
solutions to develop.
“We continue
to believe that our specialist approach is the right way to deliver consumer
protection while fostering the development of innovative and vibrant
conveyancing and probate businesses.”
However, other
professional bodies welcomed Prof Mayson’s recommendations.
Professor
Chris Bones, chair of CILEx (the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives),
said: ‘Activity-based regulation is a reform that is long-overdue and CILEx is
already pursuing this.
‘If you want
your teeth seen to, you don’t visit a GP. Yet in legal services this generalist
approach is still the basic building block of representation: at times to the
detriment of consumers. Prof Mayson is also right to call out the unsustainable
position of having organisations that both regulate and represent their parts
of the profession.’
The report was
also welcomed by Claire Green, chair of the Association of Costs Lawyers, said
the report ‘accurately identifies the shortcomings of the current system.
‘He notes how
errors from “dabblers”, including solicitors, can lead to significant and
avoidable shortfalls in costs recovery, to the detriment of lay clients. He is
right to describe this as an increasingly complex and specialised area of law
that requires expert handling, and says that only individually authorised Costs
Lawyers should be able to conduct costs litigation and advocacy. We also
strongly welcome his call to protect all legal professional titles, including
that of Costs Lawyer.’
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