A new ‘consumer-facing’ website called Legal Choices will be published this autumn under a new programme of initiatives expected to be approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The regulator announced today that the website, which is to be developed with other regulators, would ‘help ensure consumers have the information they need when they use legal services’. It forms part of a two-year action plan ‘Empowering consumers – the SRA’s approach’ to be considered by the SRA’s board tomorrow. 

According to the announcement, the new plan is the second phase of work that the SRA has carried out over the past 18 months to ‘build up an understanding of how consumers can be empowered when they use a legal service’.

The SRA’s director of inclusion, Mehrunnisa Lalani, said: ‘All too often we hear about confusion that people face when they need to access a legal service, and the perception that many big decisions are effectively left to chance if consumers don’t have the tools they need to make the right choices.’

She added: ‘Over the past 18 months we have listened to what people have told us they need. Often this amounts simply to getting the right information, in the right format, at the right time.  

‘The Legal Choices website is a good example of this, with legal regulators coming together for the first time to provide a resource that looks through the consumer’s eyes at the legal services market, and helps them to help people cut a path through advice and guidance that is already out there, and then find exactly what they need.’