Comparing the market: John Gould considers the hidden perils of online review sites for the legal profession
- Despite research suggesting that consumers have little belief in the usefulness and credibility of reviews posted online, seven web platforms have nonetheless been selected for a pilot of review sites, with solicitors encouraged to engage with them.
When it comes to the legal services market, the work of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over the last few years feels like a solution in search of a problem. In 2016, the CMA prodded legal regulators into price transparency rules. This was based on the fanciful notion that consumers would benefit from reading thousands of words on a number of solicitors’ websites describing hypothetical prices, rather than make a few phone calls to get actual quotes.
Although the CMA’s recent review of progress maintains a cheerful tone, the only progress seems to be that the regulators have managed, to some extent, to do what the CMA wanted. The result is that price comparison information is now more opaque, and an opportunity has been given
