A Technological Revolution in ‘lawyering’?
Abstract: The paper argues that the Legal Services Act 2007 lays down the basis for significant changes in how lawyers and others will provide legal services in England & Wales in the future. At the heart of the Act there is one fundamental change in the institutional infrastructure for the provision of legal services and a confirmation and consolidation of the trend in UK policy towards competitive self-regulation of markets for legal services. The licensing of Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) owned by non-lawyers to provide legal services has the potential to create a ‘technological revolution’ in ‘lawyering’ leading to innovation in not only how legal services are delivered but perhaps in the nature of legal services themselves. The two tier system of regulation inaugurated under LSA 2007 consolidates, strengthens and extends system of competition between regulators introduced by the Administration of Justice Act 1985 and the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. Under LSA 2007 front-line regulators such as the Solicitors Regulatory Authority, the Bar Standards Board and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers are supervised in carrying out their regulatory activities by the Legal Services Board which is under an obligation to promote competition in the market for legal service. The paper will further consider why there has not been the predicted revolution in lawyering in the liberalised jurisdictions of Finland and New South Wales.
