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In the end, the Bar Standards Board probably didn’t have much of a choice but to become a regulator of advocacy focused alternative business structures. Without it, barristers and chambers that wanted to practise in new ways would have been forced to go off and find a new regulator – most likely the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Advocates seeking accreditation under the quality assurance for advocates (QAA) scheme will be allowed to opt for an assessment centre route rather than judges’ evaluations alone, under new proposals being debated today.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) is on course to become the first body licensed to regulate alternative business structures, after submitting its application to the Legal Services Board. The CLC, which oversees 10-15% of the conveyancing market, has also applied to extend the range of reserved activities it regulates from conveyancing and probate to awarding rights of audience and the right to conduct litigation.

The Legal Services Board is explicitly threatening the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards with using its formal enforcement powers for the first time over their quality assurance for advocates scheme, Legal Futures can reveal. The regulators have branded the move as neither “helpful nor necessary”.

Mandatory quality assurance for criminal advocates is welcome but the scheme currently proposed by the legal profession falls short in several significant ways, the Legal Services Consumer Panel said today. Among the problems are a failure to consider consumer needs, weaker standards than had been consulted on, and allowing advocates to choose which cases they are assessed on.