Treasury backs employed bid

The Treasury has come out in support of plans to allow employed solicitors to offer their services to the public, it emerged last week.

In a report summarising the 185 responses to its In the Public Interest? consultation, the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD) reported the Treasury's view that allowing employed solicitors to undertake both reserved and unreserved work for third parties 'is key to increasing competition in the market and that competition is the best way of protecting the consumer'.

In March 2002, the Law Society Council approved the principle of employed solicitors advising third parties provided that the clients have the same level of protection as that available to clients of a solicitor in private practice.

Primary legislation would be required to make the change and the LCD's view should become clearer once it publishes its conclusions following the consultation.

This should be before Parliament's summer break.

The LCD said that overall it had found a mixed response to plans for employed solicitors, and also to allow multi-disciplinary partnerships.

'For some solicitors, providing services through new business models was seen as an exciting opportunity; for others a concept incompatible with the core values of the profession,' the report said.

There was concern about publicly funded work, with respondents saying new providers would not take on such work, while existing providers could struggle if profitable privately funded work was cherry-picked by new entrants.

On other issues, most respondents did not consider that either the authorised conveyancing or probate practitioner schemes - which would allow non-lawyers to enter the markets but have lain dormant on the statute book since 1990 - offer sufficient protection for consumers, and the majority of respondents saw some benefit in a QC system, with solicitors coming out strongly in favour of an appointment body independent of government.

The Treasury and Department of Trade and Industry, supported by the Law Society, suggested a re-accreditation system for QCs, which was opposed by the bar and the judiciary.

Neil Rose