Tag Results

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will drive many solicitors out of criminal law, the Law Society has warned. It is the latest hostile response to the final consultation on the scheme ahead of its introduction in January.

The number of applications from law firms to enter the assigned risks pool in its last year is back to pre-crisis levels, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has reported. This year the profession is liable to pay the first £10m in claims that arise from the pool.

The Legal Services Board’s call last week for an “open debate” on the cost of regulation will not have gone down a storm at Chancery Lane, I’d wager. The part of the practising fees most under threat from such a conversation is surely the 24% that goes to the Law Society for work that is essentially representative in nature but seen as being sufficiently in the public interest for solicitors to fund via compulsory levy. For now, anyway.

The problems claims management companies cause consumers will not be solved by giving the Legal Ombudsman jurisdiction over them – and may even be exacerbated, the Law Society has warned.

The possibility of the Law Society and other representative bodies being cut off from any of the money raised by practising fees has been raised by a Legal Services Board call for an “open debate on the cost of regulation”.