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Anna Bradley said: ‘By stripping away outdated and unnecessary rules and giving solicitors more flexibility to design and deliver their services around their clients, our new regulations are designed to help people access a wide range of high quality services with the confidence that proper protections are in place.’

Fine words but how can anyone really believe that by permitting someone to use of the title 'solicitor' and practise without PI cover will result in high quality service and proper consumer protection.

This is not objectionable because of a desire by the profession to maintain some form of professional closed shop, but because it fails to recognise that so many consumers of legal services will have no idea at all as to what the risks are in relying on a professional who is uninsured.

I do not understand why the SRA seems so keen to reduce the level of PI cover when from the previous consultation the evidence is that the cost saving is unlikely to make any material difference to the cost of the legal services supplied. Surely no one can really believe that freelance solicitors will comprise the cream of the legal profession. Rather it must more probable that the ranks of freelance solicitors will attract lawyers who for one reason or another most clients would be well advised to avoid.
We already have a problem with lawyers who operate on the fringes of the legal profession but it is the clients who lose out when these lawyers fail to deliver, make costly mistakes, or just plain rip them off. I am glad the Law Society is opposing this because I think most informed consumers would agree that there really should be no place for solicitors who either cannot obtain PI cover, or who are willing to practise uninsured. It is inevitable that such individuals will offer their services through incorporated businesses and then clients who are let down will have absolutely no remedy, if the business goes under. As any professional indemnity lawyer will know you cannot sue an individual who is in the employment of a limited company (except in very limited circumstances such as cases of fraud), when you have contracted with the unregulated business that has incorporated. I do not think properly protected consumers should be consumers who need to have a proper understanding of the laws of contract and tort before they take a chance with an uninsured freelance solicitor.