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While there is obviously some concern in where this proposal may lead to, I agree with Ian Newbery and Anon at 6.39am that there is "little logic in having different regulators ...[for]... people doing the same thing" and that this seems to be a "common-sense proposal to have one regulator for all branches of the legal profession."

Taking the second point first, there has been a great deal of criticism and comment about 'regulatory arbitrage' - lawyers (however originally qualified) transferring to the most benign regulatory regime; and the competitive disadvantage solicitors have in being bound by a 500 page rule book which others supplying the same legal services (but not as extensive) are not bound by.

If there is to be a market, it seems only right and fair that all providers in the market should be subject to the same regulatory regime. This proposal, on its face (and I haven't read the papers themselves) appears to acknowledge that.

The problem, surely, lies with the Legal Services Act 2007, which created the problem. As is noted here (and in countless other posts in past years) the provision of legal services is not an easily commoditised business. Conveyancing, wills and probate are and have been for many years something of a free for all. The bugbear appears to be litigation - and I agree with the comment that making litigation 'affordable' is not to be achieved (not at all - not even a cat's chance in hell) by tinkering further with the competition mechanism distinguishing different providers, but by a root and branch reformation of the litigation process. That could take (in part) the imposition of more clear laws about contracts and tort, removing the expensive ambiguities (which we old -timers may regard as fairness, a distinguishing hallmark) and imposing certainties, accepting that however that means individual cases must be decided in practice, that is a price worth paying so all others may have access to a more 'accessible' (i.e. cheaper) form of justice.

That is the basic choice facing the Government, in its apparent quest for cheap access to justice (and which the state need not subsidise in any way): cheap and rough, or fair and more expensive. At the moment, the Government seems focused on the second option, while trying, cack-handedly, to limit expense. Ultimately that won't work. Either the Government must accept that the administration of true justice, centred on fairness, requires a degree of flexibility - equity - or it should throw equity out the window and move to a 'computer says no' form of justice, cheap, but which won't always be fair.

We lawyers are mere pawns in this game - as is the Law Society - unless we can persuade Government that the notion of cheap legal services is inextricable from the ambiguities and apparent contradictions n our laws which have developed specifically to ensure equity - fairness

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