Wednesday, 3 September 2014
LSB welcomes fee-charging McKenzie Friends report but adds a note of caution
The Legal Services Board (LSB) has written to the Legal Services Consumer Panel welcoming its report fee-charging McKenzie Friends. As economic conditions and judicial practice begin to blur the traditional hard and fast boundaries between the regulated and the unregulated parts of the legal sector, reports such as this represent a very timely, material and important contribution to the ongoing debate surrounding the transformation of legal services.
However safeguards are needed before promoting fee-charging McKenzie Friends as a legitimate feature of the evolving legal services market. There is a risk they may be misleadingly perceived as offering a service underpinned by the same standards and consumer protections that are provided by a regulated professional.
Responding to the specific points addressed to the LSB we believe that the interpretation of case law and statute is a matter for the courts and we anticipate the report’s findings will be relevant to a broad range of our work, notably but far from exclusively, our current work on cost and complexity of regulation1.
Legal Services Board Chairman, Sir Michael Pitt, said:
"I welcome the contribution this report makes to the ongoing debate on legal services reform. We believe that the report offers timely consideration of an area of increasing significance and note in particular the contribution that these services can make to improving access to justice.
I support the suggestion that fee-charging McKenzie Friends should be recognised as a legitimate feature of the evolving legal services market.
However, safeguards are necessary including the issuing of guidance and greater clarity regarding their role and limitations. Consideration should also be given to accreditation, the formation of a trade association and the availability of indemnity insurance."
1 Fee-charging McKenzie Friends report recommendations number 8 and 9.
For further information, please contact our Communications Manager Vincent McGovern or by calling 020 7271 0068.
Notes for editors:
- The LSB response to the Legal Services Consumer Panel report on fee-charging McKenzie Friends can be found here.
- The LSB letter to The Honourable Mrs Justice Asplin DBE, Chair of the judicial working group tasked with considering the Legal Services Consumer Panel report can be found here.
- The Legal Services Consumer Panel report on fee-charging McKenzie Friends which was published in April 2014 can be found here.
- The Act created the LSB as a new regulator with responsibility for overseeing the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. The new regulatory regime became active on 1 January 2010.
- The LSB oversees nine approved regulators, which in turn regulate individual legal practitioners. The approved regulators, designated under Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the 2007 Act, are the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Master of the Faculties, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the Association of Costs Lawyers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
In addition, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants are listed as approved regulators in relation only to reserved probate activities. - As at 1 April 2014, the legal profession comprised 138,243 solicitors, 326 alternative business structures, 15,279 barristers, 7,927 chartered legal executives and 5,404 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The sector was valued at £29.2 billion in 2013 (total turnover).