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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, 7 July 2016

LSB responds to Ministry of Justice written statement on legal services regulation

Responding to today's Ministry of Justice's written statement on legal services regulation Neil Buckley, Chief Executive of the Legal Services Board said:

"We welcome this written statement and consultation.

We are delighted to see the work we led with the frontline regulators developing these proposals moving forward in this positive way.

We will study this consultation with great interest and respond in due course."

ENDS

 

For further information, please contact the LSB's Communications Manager, Vincent McGovern (020 7271 0068).

Notes for editors:

  1. The Ministry of Justice's written statement can be found here. The ABS consultation can be found here.

  2. The Legal Services Board's and regulators' collective response to the cross-economy drive to find more opportunities for deregulation which was published in the summer of 2015 can be found here.

  3. 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.

  4. 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 General Council of the Bar, 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.

  5. As at 1 April 2016, the legal profession in England and Wales comprised 145,059 solicitors, 15,288 barristers, 6,848 chartered legal executives and 5,697 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The UK legal sector is valued at £32 billion per annum (2015) which is up 23% in cash terms since 2012. For more information see here.