Welcoming the appointment of Shabana Mahmood as new shadow justice secretary, Law Society president Lubna Shuja noted: ‘Her background in the legal sector stands her in good stead to grapple with the many complex and urgent issues we face across the justice system.’

That may be more than template warm words. Like Shuja, Mahmood’s legal career was in professional negligence and regulation.

Since the Clementi review – given effect by the Legal Services Act 2007 – legal services and their regulation have struggled for political attention and parliamentary time. That attention is overdue, because there are issues that are stacking up.

Take the SRA’s anticipated ‘capture’ of legal executives. It might be a good thing, or it might not. But what it would do is leave the 2007 Act’s purpose in shreds – a key element of market liberalisation reverting to the old status quo of monolithic regulation. That matters whether one thinks the professions are a conspiracy against the laity, or not. What is certain is that the change shouldn’t be the result of laissez-faire drift.

The manner in which the SRA’s punitive powers have edged up also matters. Again, we are getting away from founding principles. The purpose of the SRA and SDT’s functions is to keep the public safe (and to a degree to keep members of the profession safe from one another).

Bigger fines might pass without comment in the sort of case where the SRA hands the SDT a forensic accounting case on a plate. But the Leigh Day prosecutions raise serious questions about adding to the regulator’s powers and punishments, thereby creating more incentives to settle.

As a beast, modern legal regulation slouched out of the era of light-touch regulation – like the now-dead Financial Services Authority. Current and future justice ministers should wonder about the wisdom of legal regulators gaining powers that by culture and design they were not meant to wield. And whether or not market liberalisation is important and in the public interest, a situation where we just watch its supporting structure fall into the sea is deeply unsatisfactory.

Having sat through hours of Clementi review press conferences, grudgingly thinking ‘this is time I won’t get back!’, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… it is time for a thorough review and reform of legal regulation. It cannot be rushed, but it does need to start. And this time, a review that comes ahead of reform should be led by a lawyer, not a banker.

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