The Legal Services Act needs to be updated to reflect the realities of the legal services world today, CILEX’s chief executive has told the Gazette - as the membership body unveiled a five-year strategy to establish legal executives as the third branch of the profession.
After successfully challenging Mazur, which would have restricted legal executives’ ability to carry out litigation activities, CILEX's 2027-2031 strategy document states that it will campaign for regulatory reform ‘to improve outcomes, increase effectiveness and strengthen recognition of CILEX as the third branch of the legal profession’.
CILEX chief Jennifer Coupland told the Gazette the act came into force 20 years ago - when the first iPhone came onto the market. While the iPhone has had several updates since then, the act has not, ‘even though the realities of the legal services world have moved on in all sorts of ways’.
Coupland said: 'The Legal Services Act has six reserved legal activities. I think that should be looked at again. It lays the framework for our current regulatory system. The fact we have 16 regulators - is that the best way to serve the public and give them confidence in standards? I want to see the government begin a cross-sector debate about this.'
To elevate the profile of CILEX members, CILEX also wants to tackle ‘anachronisms’ in the Civil Procedure Rules, such as in relation to terminology. For instance, practice direction 47 states that certificates must be signed by the receiving party or solicitor. CILEX believes this wording is outdated and inconsistent with the wider statutory framework under the Legal Services Act, and wants ‘solicitor’ changed to ‘authorised person’ to reflect the fact CILEX lawyers are authorised to conduct litigation under the act.
Coupland said CILEX had done ‘really well’ over the last few years ‘winning the argument about standards. More people are now understanding that CILEX lawyers are highly competent in their specialism. In many ways they have more and a deeper knowledge than solicitors in their particular area of expertise’.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed earlier this year that controversial plans to take over the regulation of legal executives had been dropped.
Coupland said that when she took up post last September, CILEX and the SRA had done a lot of work on redelegation, but the takeover would still require more time and resource. ‘I thought at this point in time it would take CILEX members from the key priorities we have outlined in our strategy.’ Coupland also spoke to SRA chief executive Sarah Rapson, who took up post at the same time, about her priorities. Both concluded that this was not the right time to pursue regulatory redelegation.
For Coupland, regulation must be proportionate, and effective for the public and CILEX members. She is working ‘collaboratively’ with current regulator CILEx Regulation, but believes there is ‘scope for improvements’.
When the Mazur judgment hit, Coupland says, ‘it was completely understandable that CILEx Regulation was not set up to deal with a crisis of that size. The responsiveness in that early part to what was happening with members was really challenging. We were working closely together to try to make this work for members and we did get to a position in the end where we got over 1,000 CILEX members through that process of getting their practice rights. But undoubtedly there were some early teething problems as that crisis hit'.
Is regulatory redelegation completely off the table? 'My focus is on working to improve regulation and to campaign for the government to look again at the Legal Services Act,' Coupland said.
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