In The Press


Legal Services Bill gets royal assent
::: 2007-10-30 ::: The Lawyer :::
The Legal Service Bill has received royal assent today (30 October) following the House of Lords approving the Bill last Thursday (25 October). The Queen approving the bill has been welcomed by the legal profession, with the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Boards (BSB) both today content that the bill is in a form that will service the legal profession. Bar Council chair Geoffrey Vos QC, said the two years of campaigning has led to the right outcome. 

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Legal Services Bill gets House of Lords' blessing
::: 2007-10-29 ::: The Lawyer :::
The Bar Council and Law Society welcomed the House of Lords' approval of the Legal Services Bill last Thursday (25 October). Law Society president Andrew Holroyd said the bill, once it receives Royal Assent later this week, will create a foundation for the future of the legal profession. "The Legal Services Bill has changed much since it was first published last December, and changed for the better," said Holroyd. "We had many doubts then, but now we can safely say it provides a workable basis for achieving Sir David Clementi's aims of modernising the regulatory structure." 

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Legal Services Bill passes final hurdle
::: 2007-10-26 ::: The Lawyer :::
The House of Lords yesterday (25 October) approved the House of Commons’ amendments to the Legal Services Bill, with the legislation expected to receive Royal Assent next week. The bill passed the Lords hurdle after the ministers made concessions to uphold the independence of the legal profession. One major compromise was in relation to the appointments to the Legal Services Board, which will oversee the Bar Standards Board (BSB) and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The Board initially would have been appointed solely by the Lord Chancellor, which raised concerns that the legal profession would become politicised. 

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Whitehall retreat on ‘polluter pays’ levy
::: 2007-10-18 ::: Law Gazette :::
The government this week gave in to opposition efforts to stop the ‘polluter pays’ principle applying to lawyers cleared by the proposed Office for Legal Complaints (OLC). During the report stage of the Legal Services Bill, minister Bridget Prentice surprised MPs by accepting a Liberal Democrat amendment that means the OLC will not levy a charge when a complaint is not upheld, so long as the lawyer took ‘all reasonable steps’ to resolve the complaint under their internal complaints procedure. The government had planned to amend the Bill to allow the OLC to waive or reduce the fee. 

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Bill to regulate solicitors ‘risks another miners’ compensation fiasco’
::: 2007-10-15 ::: The Times :::
Plans for a shake-up of the legal profession, to be debated by MPs today, could lead to another fiasco like the miners’ compensation scheme, because trade unions would be exempt from consumer safeguards, Conservative MPs say. The Legal Services Bill, which creates a new regulatory framework for lawyers, will not cover trade unions who give legal advice. Jonathan Djanogly, the Tory justice spokesman, said: “The Government has agreed to exempt trade unions from its own legislation designed to protect consumers from receiving poor or unscrupulous legal advice. 

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A bit of history

March 2001: The Office of Fair Trading publishes its report – Competition in the Professions – recommending that the rules governing the legal profession in England & Wales should be a subject to competition law.

July 2002: The Governments publishes a consultation paper – In the Public Interest? - that examins competition and regulation in the legal services market.

July 2003: The Department for Constitutional Affairs publishes a report on ‘Competition and regulation in the legal services market’.

July 2003: The Government appoints Sir David Clementi to carry out an independent review of the legal profession in order to identify a framework model that would promote competition within the legal profession as well as represent public and consumer interest.

December 2004: Sir David Clementi's Report - Review of the Regulatory Framework for Legal Services in England and Wales is published.

October 2005: The Government publishes its White Paper - The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First- which sets an agenda for legal services reform.

May 2006: The Draft Legal Service Bill is published.

July 2006: The Joint Committee’s review of the draft Legal Service Bill is published.

September 2006: The Government’s response to the Joint Committee’s report is published.

November 2006 The Legal Services Bill is published.

October 2007: After a longer than expected passage through Parliament, on 30th October 2007 the new Legal Services Act was granted Royal Assent.