The leaders of the two main branches of the UK legal profession last week highlighted their continuing rifts over last year's Clementi report, as the proposals were labelled as potentially allowing 'creeping bureaucracy' to crawl over lawyers in England and Wales.

At a European bar leaders' meeting in Vienna, the new chairman of the Bar Council re-emphasised his organisation's opposition to the prospect of external ownership of either traditional law firms or the proposed legal disciplinary partnerships (LDPs).


Reporting to the annual meeting of the presidents of law societies and bars of all European jurisdictions - including those still outside the EU - Guy Mansfield QC indicated a softening of the bar's position in relation to LDPs in principle.


Mansfield: lawyer-owned LDPs

Mr Mansfield told the conference that the bar had 'no problem' with the concept, provided LDPs were completely lawyer-owned and did not ultimately evolve into multi-disciplinary partnerships involving non-legal professionals.

However, Mr Mansfield reiterated the wide gap between the bar and the Law Society over external capital investment in law firms and ultimately in LDPs. He said there was 'clear blue water' between the bar and Chancery Lane over the issue, explaining: 'The introduction of commercial interests will mean that professional interests will be put to one side, or at the very least be pushed into second place.'


Law Society President Edward Nally said Chancery Lane was well aware 'that many European colleagues have concerns' over LDPs and the ramifications of the Clementi report generally. He told the conference that the Law Society - as the regulator of Europe's most powerful legal profession - was 'not supporting a free-for-all. And to suggest that we are would be a total misrepresentation of our position'.


He added: 'We believe that it is possible to regulate LDPs, but we have said if we can't secure regulatory equivalence [with the existing standards applied to traditional law firms], then we will not support LDPs.'


Mr Mansfield also warned the conference that the Clementi-proposed legal services board and the office of legal complaints (OLC) could evolve into bureaucratic behemoths. 'We are concerned that the board must be prevented from creeping out beyond what Parliament intends,' he said. 'This is what many regulators end up doing.'


Mr Nally agreed that 'the terms of reference for the OLC need to be set out clearly. It is our view that conduct complaints should be sent back to the Law Society to deal with, while the office will deal with pure service complaints'.


Mr Mansfield said government sources had indicated that a White Paper based on the Clementi report would be published this July, with a draft Bill expected in February 2006.