Joe Bryant counts the cost of improved legal regulation
The winds of change are blowing through the regulatory infrastructure that underpins the legal profession; a welcome breeze of independence is wafting along the shiny new corridors of power. But, while consumer groups are queuing up to welcome the reforms, others will know that improved regulation always comes at a cost. The issue here is: who picks up the tab?
The reforms enshrined in the Legal Services Act focus on the organisational change needed to move away from self-regulation towards a more independent structure.
- The Legal Services Board (LSB) has been created to be the “oversight regulator” for the entire legal profession, ie barristers and legal executives, as well as solicitors. It is an entirely independent body, with a mandate to raise public awareness of the standards against which the profession is to be assessed.
- The Office for Legal Complaints (and its henchman, the Legal Ombudsman), will be the body that will get its hands dirty at the coalface when the profession falls short of those standards and consumers complain.
- For solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority
