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The minority of consumers who shop around for legal services are likely to be more satisfied by the service they receive from their chosen provider, new research has found. The findings on how consumers choose lawyers are likely to give encouragement to high street lawyers.

Legal problems are costing small businesses in England and Wales £100bn a year, with fears over the cost of legal advice meaning they are far more likely to go it alone than seek help, authoritative new research from the Legal Services Board has found.

Yesterday’s announcement that Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling had rejected the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) recommendation that will-writing become a reserved legal activity was not a total shock. I reported in February that the LSB was nervous given Mr Grayling’s anti-regulation agenda and it was encouraging supporters to lobby the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). If nothing else, those (mainly abroad) who fear that the LSB is too close to the government can rest easy – this is the second significant slap in the face for the LSB after the MoJ in 2011 disregarded its conclusion that the case to ban referral fees was not made out.

The row over Legal Services Board-commissioned research that recommended removal of the cab-rank rule stepped up a further notch yesterday after one of the academics who conducted it hit back at the critiques published by the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board.

A proposed statutory duty on frontline regulators to consider economic growth must not be used to probe the business plans of new entrants to the market or block “risky business models”, the Legal Services Board has cautioned.