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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, 17 March 2016

Legal Services Board announces new Board Members

The Ministry of Justice and the Legal Services Board (LSB) today announced the appointment of Michael Smyth CBE QC (Hon) (non-lay member) and Jemima Coleman (non-lay member) as new non-executive Board Members for three year terms with effect from 18 April 2016.

The vacancies arise with the terms of Ed Nally and Anneliese Day QC ending on 30 September 2015 and 31 March 2016 respectively.

At the same time, Terry Babbs a current lay member of the Board has been reappointed for a further 18 month term from 1 April 2016.

The appointments were made by the Lord Chancellor in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, in accordance with the Legal Services Act 2007.

Chairman of the Legal Services Board, Sir Michael Pitt said:

"I am delighted to welcome both Michael and Jemima to the Board and the reappointment of Terry.
They each bring essential skills and significant experience to the Board’s work, and will be in a position to contribute immediately to our forward-looking agenda of regulatory reform and modernising legal services delivery."

ENDS

 

For more information please contact the LSB’s Corporate Director Julie Myers on 020 7271 0059.

Notes for editors:

  1. Michael Smyth CBE QC (Hon) has been a practising solicitor for 35 years with the majority of this time spent at Clifford Chance advising both business and private clients. He has recently stood down, after a decade, as the Chair of the International Senior Lawyers Project (a charity established to put practicing and retired lawyers into the field to support rule of law projects). Michael is a Member of the Advisory Board of both Project Associates and of Wesleyan Assurance Society. He is also a member of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Council on National Records and Archives and the Chair of Community Links, a social enterprise which provides social welfare law services. He has recently joined the Board of the Fundraising Regulator.

  2. Jemima Coleman is a senior employment lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP with experience of cross-border transactions and High Court and Tribunal litigation. Jemima is on her firm's Corporate Governance Advisory Team and has chaired various working parties of the Employment Lawyers Association's Legislative and Policy Committee. She is on the Steering Committee of the 30% Club Professional Services Firms Initiative and the Women Lawyers Network. She was on the Solicitors Regulation Authority's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee. She is a trustee and governor of Highgate School.

  3. The new appointments are for a three year term from 18 April 2016 to 17 April 2019. They carry a non-pensionable remuneration of £15,000 per annum for at least 30 days work.

  4. Terry Babbs' reappointment is from 1 April 2016 to 30 September 2017.

  5. This appointment was made in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

  6. Details of the other members of the Legal Services Board and their biographies can be found on the LSB's website here.

  7. The Legal Services Act 2007 (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.

  8. 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.

  9. As at 1 April 2015, the legal profession comprised 142,109 solicitors, 326 alternative business structures, 15,237 barristers, 7,848 chartered legal executives and 5,678 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The sector is valued at £32 billion per annum (2015) which is up 23% in cash terms since 2012. For more information see here.