LSB receives advice of Consumer Panel on referral fees

26 May 2010

The Legal Services Board has formally received the advice of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, chaired by Dianne Hayter, on referral fees and arrangements.

The LSB is building an evidence base to underpin its approach to referral fees and the Consumer Panel’s advice is a key component, following up on the research conducted by Charles Rivers Associates published last week by the LSB.

Chris Kenny, Chief Executive of the Legal Services Board said:

The advice from the Legal Services Consumer Panel is an important part of the evidence base we are building so that the Board can consider the referral fees/arrangements market and whether/how to address identified issues of concern. Receipt of this advice, for which we thank the members of the Panel, is the next step in the Board’s investigation into the referral fees market and will be considered alongside the economic impact research from Charles Rivers Associates published last week. The release of that research was followed up with a seminar this week, at which practitioners applied scrutiny to the findings.

This process of evidence collection, which has several stages, is ongoing. Next we will be holding a workshop at the beginning of June which will allow stakeholders to comment on the research undertaken - following which we will develop options for consideration by the Board in the summer. Those options will be developed in light of all of the pieces of evidence collected through this process.