The government's first move to open the legal market will begin in November when non-lawyers are allowed to provide all probate services, the Gazette has learned.


The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) confirmed this week that a statutory instrument should be laid before Parliament for approval in October to activate sections 54 and 55 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.



Section 54 extends the right to undertake probate work for profit to the likes of banks, building societies and insurance companies. Currently, only solicitors, barristers and notaries public can prepare, for reward, papers for grant of probate or letters of administration.



Data from 2002 said the value of probate, wills and trust work undertaken by solicitors was £750 million. The DCA estimated last year that just £40 million related to the reserved work. However, it is seen as the gateway to work on administering estates, worth £400 million.



The move was mooted by the Office of Fair Trading in 2001 to increase competition. The DCA's response to the In the Public Interest? consultation in July 2003 said it planned to take this forward.



The response concluded that the impact on law firms and access to justice would not be as great as lawyers claimed, predicting that solicitors would lose no more than 8% of market share.



Under section 55, the Lord Chancellor can approve bodies whose members could then provide probate services, but the criteria are not yet clear. The statutory instrument will include 'a raft of consumer safeguards' and regulatory oversight of non-legal providers, a DCA spokeswoman said.



Groups such as the Institute of Legal Executives and Council for Licensed Conveyancers are also likely to apply.



Richard Grosberg, former chairman of the Law Society's probate section, said solicitors have no problem with competition if all providers are similarly regulated.



He said there were grave doubts



whether the government has the power in legislation to regulate non-lawyer providers beyond the grant of representation. Failure to do so 'would have an adverse impact on consumer protection', he said.



Last year, Legal Services Ombudsman Zahida Manzoor warned of a risk of two-tier regulation if - as had been suggested - she had oversight of non-lawyers, but just for the initial work on the grant and not estate administration.



Mr Grosberg noted that the DCA response found little clamour for the move, adding that implementing it before Sir David Clementi's review of legal services regulation, due by the end of 2004, is premature.



Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said it would prefer the DCA to wait for Sir David's report and the prospect of legal disciplinary practices, which 'has the potential to offer consumers greater choice but within a properly regulated framework'.



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