Jon Robins follows the furore over regulation in the legal fraternity
As the vested (but disparate) interests in the press attempt to unite to ward off the threat of statutory regulation in the wake of Leveson, some commentators are looking at how vested interests elsewhere have fared. “We should also keep some perspective: the introduction of the Legal Services Board in statute has not compromised the independence of the legal profession,” argued Lord Fowler, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and others in the letter pages of The Guardian recently (“Leveson inquiry: state role required to curb press excesses, Tories urge PM”, 8 November 2012).
Mission creep
Not everyone would agree nor has the process been smooth. Only last week, lawyers in the House of Lords were complaining of the Legal Services Board’s (LSB’s) “mission creep” following on from the government’s triennial review of the LSB and last month there was a fiery speech at the Bar Council by Michael Todd QC in which he made the case “for disbanding the overarching regulator”. “Regulation is one thing, but what [the LSB] should not be doing
