The Legal Services Board’s proximity to government could threaten the independence of the legal profession, Law Society president Robert Heslett warned last night.

In a speech at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Heslett questioned the need for the LSB’s ‘draconian’ power to seize control of legal regulation. The LSB can, with government consent, take over a legal regulator if it deems it to be failing in its responsibilities.

Heslett said that the profession should instead be more closely aligned with the judiciary, and suggested that a ‘very senior’ judge should chair the LSB.

He said: ‘The LSB was not designed to play an active role in the regulation of the legal profession, but a more hands-off oversight role of assistance to enable the approved regulators to achieve the regulatory objectives in the public and consumer interest… a careful watch must be maintained that undue powers are not misused.

‘I hear a growing belief among lawyers overseas that the Legal Services Act has created a structure which could in certain circumstances represent a real threat to legal independence. In part, this belief reflects a view that replacing the judiciary as final overseers of the legal profession with the Legal Services Board – with its substantial powers under the act – is a threat to independence that should not be ignored.

‘There is no evidence from at least the last 25 years that the legal profession has been unable to regulate itself in the best interests of the public, which begs the question of why the draconian powers of intervention were gifted to the LSB in the first place.’

Heslett noted concerns in the profession about alternative business structures, but said the profession has ‘nothing to fear’ from ABSs ‘provided that there is a level playing field for all firms’.

‘Like any system [that] has grown up and evolved over centuries, the legal sector is akin to an ecosystem – interconnected, diverse, finely balanced and inherently fragile,’ he said. ‘If we make even small changes to the environment in which it has thrived, we must accept that the repercussions could be far greater and far more severe than anything originally intended.

‘Although the primary focus of the Legal Services Act was an improved environment for the consumer, we cannot simply serve the consumer interest in isolation. The legal ecosystem must also take account of the ability of the profession to serve the needs of justice.’

Heslett said that a ‘comprehensive and wide-ranging review’ of legal education is needed.