Globalization and Deregulation of Legal Services
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The Legal Services Act 2007: an Act of Revolution for the Legal Profession? 1
May 2011 THE LEGAL SERVICES ACT 2007: AN ACT OF REVOLUTION FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION? 1 Michael Zander QC FBA Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics Introduction From the 1960s, for forty or so years, I took a close interest in the affairs of the legal profession but it is now quite a number of years since I have published anything on the subject. I was therefore very pleased to be invited to give a lecture on this topic as it gave me the stimulus to try to get to grips with what has been happening as a result of the passing of the Legal Services Act. Since most of you are lawyers who have no doubt been reading about the Act and its implications for several years, it would obviously be inappropriate to go through it as if this was new legislation requiring explication. Rather I thought it might be of interest to attempt to take some measure of its significance, both in terms of the historical perspective and looking forward. Before doing so, I should say something about my own stance in regard to the broad topic ‘reform of the legal profession’. This was the issue that first drew me to an academic career. When I left Cambridge in 1957, my intention had been to go to the Bar. But after a postgraduate year at Harvard Law School, I spent a year with the great Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. That experience changed everything. First, it led me to decide that the work I wanted to do was corporate law with a firm of City solicitors. -
The Legal Services Act 2007 (Claims Management Complaints) (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2017
EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE LEGAL SERVICES ACT 2007 (CLAIMS MANAGEMENT COMPLAINTS) (FEES) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2017 2017 No. 22 1. Introduction 1.1 This explanatory memorandum has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice and is laid before Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. 1.2 This memorandum contains information for the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. 2. Purpose of the instrument 2.1 These Regulations amend the Legal Services Act 2007 (Claims Management Complaints) (Fees) Regulations 2014 (S.I. 2014/3316) 1 (“the 2014 Regulations”). They amend the level of fees set by the 2014 Regulations and payable by authorised claims management companies, for the year beginning 1 April 2017 and subsequent years. 3. Matters of special interest to Parliament Matters of special interest to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments 3.1 These Regulations decrease the fees that are to be charged to authorised claims management companies. This is to ensure that the Lord Chancellor can recover the total costs related to the Legal Ombudsman dealing with complaints about the claims industry, in the context of an over collection in fees to date, a reduction in the number of claims management companies and the Legal Ombudsman’s expected case volumes, and associated costs, in 2017-18. 3.2 We have considered the JCSI’s comments in its first report of 2014-15 with regard to the commencement of affirmative instruments and have taken the view that it is not applicable to this instrument. This is because this instrument amends the level of existing fees. As such, it does not impose a new duty and we do not anticipate that claims management companies will adopt a different pattern of behaviour in consequence of the decreased fee levels. -
SRA Compensation Arrangements Review a Snapshot of the Current Arrangements
SRA Compensation Arrangements Review A snapshot of the current arrangements Contents 1 The SRA's Compensation Arrangements Review - an overview ........ 3 2 The legal services market ...................................................... 6 3 What are the risks to consumers’ financial interests? ................. 10 4 How does the SRA manage these risks? ................................... 13 5 How does the SRA protect consumers when firms fail to meet the necessary standards? ............................................................................ 18 6 Funding the Compensation Fund ........................................... 27 7 How the SRA manages applications to the Compensation Fund ..... 30 8 Value of claims on the Compensation Fund ............................. 31 1 The SRA's Compensation Arrangements Review - an overview 1.1 The SRA and other legal services regulators1 are required to have in place appropriate professional indemnity insurance and compensation arrangements. These arrangements are there to provide consumers of legal services with protection from financial loss because of dishonesty, failure to account, fraud and dishonesty. 1.2 The SRA operates a compensation fund to help people who have lost money as a result of a law firm's dishonesty or failure to account for money received. 1.3 In recent years there have been significant changes in the way the legal services sector operates and is regulated. These changes include the separation of the representative and regulatory functions of professional bodies (such as the Law Society and Bar Council) which are approved regulators under the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA) and the liberalisation of legal services business structures permitting non-lawyer involvement in various forms. With the variety of services provided by law firms, the users of legal services have also changed significantly with different needs. -
Legal Professional De(Re)Regulation, Equality, and Inclusion, and the Contested Space of Professionalism Within the Legal Market in England and Wales
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL DE(RE)REGULATION, EQUALITY, AND INCLUSION, AND THE CONTESTED SPACE OF PROFESSIONALISM WITHIN THE LEGAL MARKET IN ENGLAND AND WALES Lisa Webley* INTRODUCTION The legal profession in England and Wales is undergoing an unprecedented process of de(re)regulation1 as a result of the Legal Services Act 20072 (LSA 2007 or LSA). New types of legal businesses are emerging, and law graduates—who previously had not found a place within the regulated admitted legal profession—appear to be entering new facets of the legal marketplace, albeit often in precarious circumstances via circuitous routes.3 Moreover, globalization and the increased mobility of legal professionals around Europe and industrialized and industrializing common law countries are also reshaping sections of the legal market.4 * Professor of Empirical Legal Studies, University of Westminster. I am grateful for the contributions of all who organized, hosted, and contributed to The Challenge of Equity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession: An International and Comparative Perspective Colloquium held at Fordham University School of Law. For an overview of the colloquium, see Deborah L. Rhode, Foreword: Diversity in the Legal Profession: A Comparative Perspective, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 2241 (2015). 1. I have used de(re)regulation to connote the confluence of a move to deregulate the legal profession, namely to remove much of its apparatus and power of self-regulation, and to reregulate the legal profession along market principles in accordance with New Labour’s Third Way regulatory policy, discussed later in the Article. 2. Legal Services Act, 2007, c. 29 (Eng.). 3. On legal business innovation, see Lisa Webley, When Is a Family Lawyer a Lawyer?, in DELIVERING FAMILY JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY (Mavis Maclean et al. -
Part I - Preliminary
PART I - PRELIMINARY 101. The Eighth Edition of the Code was adopted by the Bar Council on 18 September 2004 and came into force on 31st October 2004. 102. This Code includes the Annexes. 103. Amendments and additions to this Code may be made by Resolution of the Bar Standards Board Council which shall be operative upon such date as the Resolution shall appoint or if no such date is appointed on the later of: (a) the date of the Resolution; and (b) the date when approval of the amendment or addition, if required, is given by the Legal Services Board under Schedule 4 of the Legal Services Act 2007. Amendments and additions will be published from time to time in such manner as the Bar Council Standards Board may determine. General purpose of the Code 104. The general purpose of this Code is to provide the requirements for practice as a barrister and the rules and standards of conduct applicable to barristers which are appropriate in the interests of justice and in particular: (a) in relation to self-employed barristers to provide common and enforceable rules and standards which require them: (i) to be completely independent in conduct and in professional standing as sole practitioners; (ii) to act only as consultants instructed by solicitors and other approved persons (save where instructions can be properly dispensed with); (iii) to acknowledge a public obligation based on the paramount need for access to justice to act for any client in cases within their field of practice; (b) to make appropriate provision for : (i) barrister managers, employees and owners of recognised bodies; and (iv)(ii) employed barristers taking into account the fact that such barristers are employed to provide legal services to or on behalf of their employer. -
Your Guide to Choosing a Solicitor 2018/19
your guide to choosing a solicitor 2018/19 www.spinal.co.uk DM_ad_130mm x190mm_HR 18/07/2018 08:59 Page 1 ACCESSIBLE DESIGN By And For Disabled People Award-winning designer ADAM THOMAS, a wheelchair- user since 1981 has over 30 years’ experience of access issues. He is a leading authority on accessible kitchen design and has been involved in projects for the SIA HQ in Milton Keynes, Stoke Mandeville hospital, the Injured Jockey’s Fund and the Olympic Village London 2012. Through his work he has helped hundreds of clients regain their independence, including those affected by catastrophic injury and ABI. DESIGN MATTERS offers a comprehensive end-to-end service from design to installation with outstanding customer support. Each kitchen is tailored to the client’s requirements and provides a fully accessible, safe space that is entirely fit-for-purpose. Some of our clients even report reduced reliance on PAs. APPROVED Tel: 01628 531584 MEMBER www.dmkbb.co.uk 801128 SIA Healthcare A4 Advert_Layout 1 01/02/2018 14:20 Page 1 801128 SIAYOUr Healthcare A4 Advert_Layout 1 01/02/2018 dedicated 14:20 Page 1 home delivery service SIASIA Healthcare's Healthcare's 2,000th 2,000th Member Member GavinGavin Walker Walker OverOver 2,6 2,006 00SIA SIA membersmembers have have chosenchosen it. 9it.2% 9 2of% of SIA Healthcare SIA Healthcare members would members would recommend it* recommend it* SIA Healthcare is a dedicated Home Delivery Service that provides spinal cord injured people with SIA Healthcareall of their urology is a dedicated and stoma Home products Delivery and prescription Service that providesmedication spinal efficiently cord injuredand discreetly people to with all oftheir their door. -
Goulandris, Atalanta Redacted.Pdf
City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Goulandris, A. (2016). Continuity and change: the professional lives and culture of self-employed barristers in England and Wales. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City, University of London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/17678/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Continuity and Change: the professional lives and culture of self-employed barristers in England and Wales Atalanta Goulandris City, University of London Department of Sociology A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents 2–5 Acknowledgements 6 Declaration and Note 7 Abstract 8 Key to Abbreviations 9 Introduction 10 PART -
Law Society Complaints Procedure Uk
Law Society Complaints Procedure Uk Die-hard Norris controlling all. Mikhail cry menacingly. Disliked Neel beshrews giocoso. Bonuses have otherwise been accounted for. Scotlandwho should make responsible for complaints handling. Directing the complaint for our attorneys. Scottish legal advice, apologise or law. We are law society complaints procedure details provided and the complaint arising from the use. Our Complaints Policy Cognitive Law. Income to and Corporation Tax payment also frequently relevant. What regulating body that complaint in law society or the procedures in the information in all your membership, which is acting for complaint is needed for? If this procedure of complaint please contact law society or advising or chief managing partner responsible for loss of completing his views on. All firms of solicitors in England and Wales will missing a complaints procedure. If you know and complaints committee in law society to providing it should be bound to. The law society about our central register and completions take longer practising in terms of the ssdt is found. If, for heart reason, Mr Gibbins is unavailable, please contact Dr Laura Brampton instead. Terms and conditions Hughes Solicitors. They will then the law charge you any solutions agreed method, then you are only if you become final responsibility for you of an independent? It just fail to illustrate how speaking the times most lawyers are now it comes to refer service and pick some believe them are talking to workshop a nasty attack when competitors who grieve this seriously enter the market. If you are law society complaints procedure before continuing instructions on the complaint? The reality is, consistent most cases, very different. -
The Legal Services Act 2007 (The Law Society) (Modification of Functions) Order 2015
EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE LEGAL SERVICES ACT 2007 (THE LAW SOCIETY) (MODIFICATION OF FUNCTIONS) ORDER 2015 2015 No. 401 1. This explanatory memorandum has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice and is laid before Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. 2. Purpose of the Instrument 2.1 This instrument removes the requirement on a solicitor who is a sole practitioner to have to obtain an annual endorsement on their practising certificate and so establishes a single method of authorisation and regulation of all solicitors. This also has the effect of removing the differences in the way in which the regulatory arm of the Law Society, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), can take regulatory action where a difficulty arises with a sole practitioner. 3. Matters of special interest to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments 3.1 None. 4. Legislative Context 4.1 The Legal Services Act 2007 (“the 2007 Act”) governs the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. Under the 2007 Act, only a person who is authorised by an approved regulator, or who is exempt from the requirement to be authorised, may carry on a reserved legal activity as defined in section 12 of that Act. Approved regulators are responsible for ensuring that the persons authorised by them act in a way that is consistent with the regulatory objectives set out in the 2007 Act. Part 2 of the 2007 Act established the Legal Services Board (“the LSB”) as the oversight regulator with responsibility for approved regulators. The approved regulators and the reserved legal activities in relation to which they are designated are set out in Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the 2007 Act and in designation orders made under Schedule 4. -
Solicitors Regulation Authority the Cube 199 Wharfside Street Birmingham B1 1RN
Solicitors Regulation Authority The Cube 199 Wharfside Street Birmingham B1 1RN FAO Juliet Oliver Crispin Passmore 20 th December 2017 Dear Sirs, Response of the CLLS Professional Rules and Regulation Committee (“CLLS”) to the SRA Consultation “Looking to the future: better information, more choice” (September 2017). 1. Introduction 1.1 The CLLS has read the SRA consultation paper entitled “Looking to the future: better information, more choice”. 1.2 In January 2016, the CLLS submitted a response to the October 2016 SRA discussion paper entitled “Regulatory data and consumer choice in the legal services” (the “January response”). 1.3 For the most part our comments reiterate those set out in our January response. In summary, the CLLS supports the recommendations set out in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report on the legal services for the provision of better information to sectors of the market where competition is not functioning and to assist individual consumers and small businesses in being able to make better informed choices when selecting solicitors. However, any proposals to publish information either by firms or by the SRA must: (A) be proportionate; (B) not be unduly burdensome to firms; and (C) ensure that the information to be published is objective, properly contextualised and presented in a helpful, clear and understandable manner which is not misleading. 1.4 We have provided our response to some (but not all) of the questions raised in the consultation paper. We have grouped our comments under the headings of Price transparency and description of the services provided, Publication of PII data, How to complain to the firm and to the Legal Ombudsman, Creating a digital register, Publishing complaints data and Transparency requirements of individual solicitors working outside LSA regulated firms. -
Internal Governance and Practising Fee Rules – Supplementary Consultation
Internal Governance and Practising Fee Rules – Supplementary Consultation Bar Standards Board’s response Introduction 1. The Bar Standards Board (BSB) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the LSB‟s supplementary consultation on Internal Governance and Practising Fee Rules. 2. The BSB agrees with the new structure of principles, rules and guidance. This approach appears to create greater clarity and flexibility in the arrangements and is therefore welcome. The BSB also broadly agrees with the content of the principles, rules and guidance and therefore only believes it necessary to comment on a few discrete points. Definition of ‘lay person’ 3. The BSB notes that the LSB proposes to define a „lay person‟ as it is defined in the Legal Services Act 2007 („the Act‟), Schedule 1, paragraphs 2(4) and (5). These provisions prohibit anyone who, before the appointed day, is a barrister to be considered a „lay person‟. The LSB will be aware that individuals are called to the Bar (and therefore become barristers) after they have successfully completed the Bar Vocational Course (or Bar Professional Training Course from 1 September 2009) but before they have completed pupillage. A significant number of people have obtained the academic degree of „barrister‟, but have not undertaken pupillage and are therefore not entitled to practise as barristers. 4. The BSB believes that individuals who have been called to the Bar, but have never been entitled to practise as a barrister, should not be prohibited from being classified as a „lay person‟. There are many people who were called to the Bar but then pursued a career in public, financial or academic life. -
Scheme Rules
Consultation response: April 2010 Scheme rules Scheme rules consultation response Introduction The Legal Ombudsman is being established by the Office for Legal Complaints (Legal Ombudsman) under the Legal Services Act 2007 to make sure users of legal services can go to an independent and impartial Ombudsman scheme to resolve disputes involving their lawyer. Finalising the scheme rules is a vital step in making the aims of the Act real so that users of legal services and their lawyers will have confidence in how complaints are resolved. The scheme rules themselves provide the framework for how we will resolve disputes and, drawing on the learning from complaints, inform good practice. The rules will underpin our decisions and our process. Over the last months of 2009 we consulted on the scheme rules. Of the three consultations we ran last year the scheme rules attracted the most responses (twenty) from a balanced mix of consumer and campaigning groups, individual firms and organisations representing the profession. Thank you to everyone who shared their views with us. We were pleased that the overall feedback was that the rules provide a robust structure to support an Ombudsman scheme that resolves disputes impartially, quickly and fairly. The responses to our consultations are published on the Legal Ombudsman website at www.legalombudsman.org.uk. Following the consultation our Board considered the responses we received and then agreed the scheme rules for the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Services Board (LSB) then approved the proposed scheme rules as they are required to do under section 155 of the Act. We then wrote to the Lord Chancellor to ask for his consent (also under section 155 of the Act) to the case fee structure which is included in chapter six of the scheme rules.