ICAEW to add litigation as regulator

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Accountants bid to regulate reserved legal services

One of the three organisations for chartered accountants in England and Wales is pitching to be approved as a regulator of reserved legal services, it emerged yesterday.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants has applied to the Legal Services Board to become an approved regulator and licensing authority for five activities, three of which are limited to tax advice. Those three tax fields involve the conduct of litigation, rights of audience and reserved instrument activities. The other fields are notarial services and the administration of oaths. The institute is already an approved regulator and licensing authority for probate work.

If the board gives the application the green light, the market for legal services regulation will become a bit more crowded. The board already oversees nine groups, including bigger players such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board, and regulators of legal executives, licensed conveyancers and trademark attorneys.

Duncan Wiggetts, the institute’s executive director, said: “As an experienced regulator I am confident the Institute of Chartered Accountants will ensure its members and firms provide excellent reserved legal services to the public.”

Bar Regulator looking for New Law business

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Bar Regulator looking for New Law business

The barristers’ regulator is looking for a guinea pig to test its ability to oversee new models of legal practice, it emerged yesterday.

The Bar Standards Board announced that it was looking for existing alternative business structures – business employing lawyers but that do not conform to the traditional partnership or chambers model – for a pilot programme.

Since April 2015, the board has been operating a halfway house by regulating lawyer-only bodies known as “entities” or “authorised bodies” that, while not being traditional chambers, were still run by lawyers. In contrast, ABSs can involve non-lawyer owners and financing.

“We encourage anybody who is thinking about establishing an ABS or entity to please get in touch with our entity regulation team to discuss your needs,” said Oliver Hanmer, the BSB’s director of supervision.

A market for regulators will emerge once the BSB becomes a fully-fledged regulator of ABSs, with the organisation competing for business with the much larger Solicitors Regulation Authority. But critics argue that competition will drive regulators to the lowest common denominator in a bid to land business.

Barristers must not think of CPD as a mere box ticking exercise

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Oliver Hanmer is director of supervision at the Bar Standards Board. He says in The Times that the BSB, the regulator, wants them to think carefully about learning and professional development needs. It wants to give them flexibility to undertake the right CPD for them; it is recognised that one size does not fit all, and that even the number of hours of CPD that barristers must undertake will vary.

The reasons for this are clear: all barristers are different and some will require more CPD than others. Therefore, the emphasis of the BSB’s updated scheme is to provide more flexibility.

It will mean that established barristers will be free to plan their own CPD activities, will have greater flexibility in the types of CPD activities they undertake, will not be subject to any compulsory or accredited activities, will not be subject to a minimum number of hours and will no longer need to apply for an extension of time or a waiver from CPD requirements.

It is expected that this change and the increased freedom it gives barristers will encourage innovation and competition among course providers of CPD, although that was not the primary object of the reforms.

Also, and importantly, barristers’ CPD will continue to be supervised. While the new regime will provide greater flexibility regarding the type and amount of CPD activities, it does not mean that barristers can completely avoid CPD.

Far from it; the BSB will continue to supervise barristers’ CPD, and persistent and deliberate non-compliance will result in enforcement action.

To help barristers prepare for the arrangements, the regulator is planning a series of events around the country later in the year. Details of these events will be published soon.

LSB review of regulation and reform

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Law Society chief executive Catherine Dixon said: ‘We agree with the LSB that broadly speaking the legal regulatory system is working effectively. The system is relatively new and changes are still being embedded. 

‘We do have a vision for the future of legal services regulation and if there were to be a whole-scale and thoughtful review, we think that there is an opportunity for simpler and better regulation.

‘Currently we think the definition of regulation is too broad and should not include professional standards, legal education and training and entry into the profession and awarding the professional title of solicitor, which we think should sit with the profession that knows what good looks like and can drive higher standards.

‘This would leave the regulator to get on with setting independent regulatory rules that consistently apply to the legal services market. Simpler and better regulation would reduce costs while providing more consistent protection for consumers.’

She added that the solicitors’ profession ‘has a great track record of innovation and creativity in a changing market’.

Bar chairman Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC, said the report ‘contains some mixed messages’. 

While the LSB has identified innovations, the rise in ‘DIY justice’ is a concern. She also said that the report ‘fails to highlight the difference between barristers and other legal service providers, such as solicitors. Given the high volume of work carried out by barristers through the referral model, the report leaves a gap in its account of the legal services market today’.

Paul Philip, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, said that the report showed ‘there is still a long way to go, particularly to improve choice and deal with the problem of unmet legal need. We believe that our reforms will increase access to high quality, affordable legal services by getting rid of unnecessary bureaucracy and further promoting competition’.

BSB to scrap continuing education for barristers

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Regulator to scrap continuing education for barristers 

Barristers will no longer have to complete a mandatory continuing professional education, if proposals from the profession’s regulator go ahead, it was announced yesterday.

The Bar Standards Board launched a consultation process that would see barristers fall in line with recent reforms to the solicitors’ professional development regime.

The move could more or less destroy what was a thriving business in legal profession update courses because, if it gets the green light, solicitors and barristers would in the future be allowed to self-certify that they are abreast of recent professional developments.

A board statement said that the proposed future regime would mean that barristers would be “free to plan their own continuing professional development activities”. As part of that liberalised programme, barristers will not be subject to any compulsory activities or to a minimum number of hours. And, said the board, barristers “will no longer need to apply for an extension of time or a waiver from their CPD requirements”.

The BSB’s director of supervision, Oliver Hanmer, announced a series of consultation meetings on the proposals around the country that will run until the beginning of September.

Two years ago, the Solicitors Regulation Authority radically reformed its CPD rules, effectively dropping all mandatory requirements.

SRA want independence from TLS and Bar separation from BSB

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Paul Philip told MPs that total independence from the Law Society was crucial. “Perception is everything,” he said. “It is all about public perception. And currently the public is confused over who we are. It is difficult to convince them that we are not part of the Law Society.”

Vanessa Davies, director-general of the Bar Standards Board, agreed with Philip that complete separation was necessary – from the Bar Council in her organisation’s case – if public trust and confidence in legal profession regulation were to be maintained.

23,000 and 30,000 people use online provider for divorce.

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The research, which focused on unregulated providers for wills, divorce and intellectual property law, found that on average unregulated providers represent 5% of the paid advice given to address a legal problem.

The proportion was highest in family law, where unregulated providers represent between 10%-13% of the paid advice given.

The research found that unregulated providers offer lower prices on average than their regulated competitors, particularly for wills and divorce.

According to the report, solicitors on average charge £722 for an uncontested divorce compared to £36 to £172 from online divorce providers.

Meanwhile it noted that consumers value the fact that wills and estate administration providers typically conduct home visits.

The report also found that 81% of consumers who had used an unregulated provider were satisfied with the customer service, almost the same level as with regulated providers, where 84% of consumers said they were satisfied.

Pitt said: ‘It is however, very important that consumers make informed decisions to use unregulated providers. They will receive less protection than if using a regulated provider and it is of concern if they are accepting this without realising the lack of consumer protection.’

Legal professional bodies said that the LSB report understated the risks posed by unregulated providers.

Chantal-Aimee Dorries QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: ‘It is a matter of concern that between 23,000 and 30,000 people, according to the LSB report, are using unregulated online providers when going through a divorce.

Using unqualified and insufficiently insured providers of advice in family matters, which will often involve children, instead of using the services of properly regulated professional lawyers, carries considerable risk for all concerned. Legal regulators must do more to warn consumers about the risks of using the wrong type of legal service provider – unregulated, not properly qualified or insured.’

BSB gets LSB recommended approval to regulate ABSs

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BSB welcomes LSB’s recommendation to the Lord Chancellor to enable it to regulate ABSs

19 May 2016

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has recommended to the Lord Chancellor that the Bar Standards Board (BSB) be permitted to regulate Alternative Business Structures (ABSs), by designating the Bar Council as a licensing authority.

BSB Director of Regulatory Policy Ewen MacLeod said: “We welcome today’s announcement. We want to permit innovation in the legal services market, which we hope will increase choice and provide other lasting benefits for consumers.

BSB given go ahead to license ABS’s

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BSB won approval yesterday to regulate ABS’s ( alternative business structures) in a move that will heighten competition among legal profession regulators for lawyer business.

The Bar Standards Board announced that the overall regulator in England and Wales, the Legal Services Board, had approved its application. The final remaining step is a formal order from the lord chancellor.

BSB-licensed ABS’s will allow lawyers and non-lawyers jointly to own and manage businesses that provide reserved legal activities. It advances the present position where BSB-regulated “entities” can include lawyer partners, regardless of whether they are barristers, solicitors or legal executives.

Oliver Hanmer, the board’s director of supervision, said that the LSB’s authorisation was a “testament to our desire to encourage innovation and competition and to improve access to justice within the legal services market”.

Complaints handling guidance from LSB for SRA and BSB

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The Legal Services Board (LSB) is set to instruct the frontline regulators like the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board to get tough with lawyers who do not handle client complaints properly.

Firms should gather data on first-tier complaints-handling processes and also analyse data from LeO on complaints that then reach it.“This analysis can provide approved regulators with an evidence base to develop regulatory responses to improve outcomes for clients.

These may include:

  • supervisory interventions for authorised persons to improve complaints-handling procedures;
  • thematic reviews of recurring issues, which may result in changes to approved regulators’ regulatory arrangements for complaints handling,
  • supporting policies and guidance; and
  • promoting best practice observed during data analysis.”

The draft guidance also urges the regulators to share their work with each other to reduce “poor practice” across the legal market. The LSB has published a consultation document