The Department for Constitutional Affairs

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, said: ‘The government welcomes the main recommendations. We want to ensure proportionate and appropriate regulation and separate handling of consumer redress. We will want to work closely on the details of his report with all of those involved, especially those representing the legal professions and consumer interests, to take forward this report and deliver reform quickly. We will be careful to ensure as small a bureaucracy as possible.

‘I am sure that the legal professional bodies will engage positively with us.


‘While there are challenges in the report, we have worked together successfully on a number of issues, including the establishment of a new interim system for the appointment of Queen’s Counsel. I am confident that we will continue to do so on the issues arising from Sir David’s report.


‘We can affirm our commitment to putting in place a regulatory framework that ensures a better deal for consumers through increased competition, innovation and transparency, and safeguards the independence of the legal professions – including independence from government – in providing high-quality advice.’



Office of Fair Trading


John Vickers, OFT chairman, said: ‘The Clementi recommendations combine deregulation – greater freedom for legal service providers to compete – with better regulation. Users of legal services and the wider public will benefit from early and effective reform to secure these improvements.’


National Consumer Council


Deirdre Hutton, chairwoman of the National Consumer Council, said: ‘The new legal services regulator is extremely welcome. It will place the interests of consumers at the heart of the new regime and provide consistency and much-needed scrutiny of the standards of service delivered by the professions. Sir David Clementi’s recommendations must not be swept under the carpet, but implemented with new legislation in the next parliamentary session. Repeated attempts to improve the current system by tweaking at the edges have failed. For too long the legal professions have regulated themselves with disastrous results for consumers, especially over the way the Law Society handles complaints about solicitors.’


Bar Council


Bar Chairman Stephen Irwin QC said: ‘The Bar Council looks forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with government and with others concerned in the process of decision-making and implementation of the recommendations. Above all, any changes must not be allowed to compromise the fundamental independence of lawyers.

‘We are ready to respond to Sir David’s bid to improve competition in the law: 2005 will see the launch of a major marketing push by the bar to alert prospective clients to the benefits of using a barrister.


‘The bar’s track record on self-regulation is a good one. We have the right to expect earned autonomy in our affairs, for so long as our complaints handling serves the public interest. If all complaints against barristers go first to a new complaints body this will reduce the quality of service to clients. We do not want the service provided to the public to be diminished by being sucked into a large bureaucratic office for legal complaints.’


Mr Irwin repeated his critical view of some aspects of legal disciplinary practices: ‘We have real concerns about non-lawyers, who are not trained in legal practice or bound by legal ethics, being in control of a legal practice. There will need to be very close scrutiny of safeguards here, to ensure there is no danger to professional standards. The Bar Council remains opposed to ownership or control of legal practices by people not bound by professional ethical codes.’



Legal Aid Practitioners Group


Director Richard Miller said: ‘The UN basic principles on legal professions says that “lawyers shall be entitled to form and join self-governing professional associations to represent their interests, promote their continuing education and training and protect their professional integrity”.

‘A large part of the work of our members involves challenging government decisions. Our immediate concern on seeing Sir David’s proposals is that they may give the government too much control over the lawyers whose challenges to them are essential in a free and democratic society.’



Association of Personal Injury Lawyers


An APIL statement said: ‘Personal injury lawyers are bitterly disappointed that claims management companies appear to have slipped through the regulatory net yet again.’ APIL president Colin Ettinger said: ‘Clementi has shied away from this issue and has put additional pressure on the government which must, surely, now step in to ensure claims management companies are properly regulated.

‘The government has dithered for years over this issue, and Clementi has now failed to deal with it.’



Clifford Chance


‘The recommendation for a transparent and accountable new legal services board with clear statutory objectives is a refreshing innovation. There has long been a need to reform the joint role of regulator and representative body as presently performed by the Law Society.

‘The opportunity to work more closely with lawyers from different professional bodies, and the ability to discard the needless bureaucracy which currently requires barristers to requalify as solicitors before joining our partnership, is welcomed.


‘We also support the recommendation to allow non-lawyers to be involved in management and ownership subject to a “fit to own” test, although we have no plans to change the current ownership structure of our firm.’



Institute of Legal Executives


ILEX released a statement saying: ‘The review has highlighted the feasibility of LDPs, which will bring together lawyers from different professional bodies... This will ensure that they work on an equal footing to provide legal services to the consumer, who will ultimately be given more choice.’

President Sandra Barton said: ‘It is important that any improvement to the regulatory framework resulting from this review will enable change to occur which will encourage diversity in provision and prove beneficial to the consumer.’ ILEX also ‘strongly supports Sir David’s proposal that all service complaints should be dealt with by a single body’.



RAC


RAC head of legal affairs, Jonathan Gulliford, said: ‘Clementi’s report provides the foundation for a 21st century legal industry that puts the customer first.

‘A more open, competitive industry will allow other organisations with a track record of service delivery to bring much-needed reassurance and trust to a sector characterised by solicitors’ often unapproachable and intimidating image.’



Law Society reaction