Legal services framework
The Legal
Services Act 2007 is reshaping the way legal services
are provided and legal practitioners are regulated. The Act
sets out a framework for a consumer-led, market-orientated approach
to the provision of legal services, in which representative bodies
will no longer deal with complaints about the service provided by
their own members.
Although wide ranging in its effects the legislation does not
end the role of the existing regulators. But it does require
them to restructure themselves and have regard to new, statutory
criteria. The Act establishes the Legal Services Board
(LSB) as an oversight regulator for the existing regulators:
CILEx, the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Council for Licensed
Conveyancers, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the Chartered
Institute of Patent Attorneys and the Association of Law Costs
Draftsmen. The LSB takes over the functions of the Lord
Chancellor, Master of the Rolls, Ministry of Justice and other
organisations previously involved in regulating lawyers.
The LSB must promote the regulatory objectives set out in
the Act. These can be accessed
here.
The Act requires the Approved Regulators to separate their
regulatory and representative activities and to ensure that
regulation is carried out independently, free from interference by
the Approved Regulator. IPS, the Bar Standards Board
(BSB), the Solicitors Regulation
Authority (SRA) and the Intellectual Property Regulation Board
(IPREG) have been established as the regulatory arms of the
Approved Regulators.
The Act also sets up licensing rules which make it possible for
different types of business structures to be developed to provide
legal services. These are described as Alternative Business
Structures (ABS).
ABS can be owned, managed or financed by people or organisations
who are not lawyers.
The Act also made it possible for different types of lawyer to
work together in Legal Practices. As a result, for the
first time, Chartered Legal Executives can become full partners in
solicitors' firms. A small proportion of owners or partners
in solicitors' firms can also be non-lawyers.