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Sadly we are heading back to the early 19th Century when there was a plethora of different styles of "lawyers: who were of varying competence and honesty. The following years brought about the creation of the Law Society and a single recognised qualification with a single set of ethics, and professed skills.
The only problem is that in the new age solicitors are left high and dry with all the cost and complication of being fully regulated and qualified, whilst others nibble away their most profitable business with cut price models.
Someone in government thinks that solicitors are a monopoly from whom the public needs to be protected by deregulation (rather in the way they "protect" us from the former monopoly statutory utilities with cumbersome quangos called Ofthis and Ofthat) whereas, in fact, firms of solicitors are relatively small trading entitles already competing against one another.
Anthony Townsend was ex Dental Association, and Paul Philip is ex General Medical Council. I cannot recall every having my dentist or doctor give me his complaints procedure, or tell mea bout his charging rates. You just sit there, do as you are told, and pay up (yes you pay your NHS Doctor for non NHS work - health checks for insurance and so on).
Unless all the work that solicitors undertakes becomes "regulated" then any one can undercut by practising un qualifies and uninsured in any non regulated field. The field is not level, or anything like it.
Adam Samson wanting to regulate will writers is a pipe dream. He was able to claw claims management companies into his remit, because they are subject to registration requirements, and I am glad he did. The MoJ was incapable of regulating them, even though it was meant to, At least they should now meet the same standards as solicitors.
Will writers, employment consultants, and many other "legal" practitioners are entirely unregulated, and in the current climate that is not about to change.
Perhaps one day there will be huge scandal involving unregulated legal work and the powers that be will wonder whether the new system is such a good idea.
The Law Society remains a silent advocate, and so until such time as the brown stuff hits the whirly thing we solicitors will have to put up with getting the sticky end of the stick.