The chairman of the Legal Services Board (LSB), Sir Michael Pitt, has called on the regulators to reduce the cost of legal services to meet the needs of small businesses and people who are not eligible for legal aid.
During a Westminster Legal Policy Forum event on the future of legal regulation, the head of the LSB described the legal System in England and Wales as ‘world-class’, but said that the Legal Services Act 2007 was only a job ‘half done.’
He said the act had left the legal sector “highly confusing and illogical” and described the division between regulated and unregulated services as confusing to those trying to decide who to represent them.
“In addition to this confusion, the structure of regulating bodies is surprisingly complex and expensive,” he added.
He said this lack of clarity and expense was putting off a lot of small businesses and less well-off private clients seeking legal help and this needed to be a priority for the regulators.
Sir Michael said: ““Above all, more needs to be done to tailor legal services and reduce their costs to meet the needs of small business and people who are neither wealthy nor eligible for legal aid.
“Historically that hasn’t been the agenda for legal regulators, who have focused far more on individual standards and the public interest. But the public interest is woefully ill-served if the market fails to serve such a large proportion of the population”
He called for the system to be simplified and the costs for vulnerable people and businesses reduced in order to meet their need.
He added: “We are tackling deregulation and making further improvements, but there is a marked reluctance for regulators to address jointly the more fundamental weaknesses in the legal system. Gridlock and fear of change are holding us back.”