Has the time come for regulation to be front and centre when marketing legal services?
We recently attended the Westminster Legal Policy Forum, where a number of key issues that will affect the legal profession in the coming years were discussed, including unregulated entities being able to provide legal services to consumers.
One of the key concerns raised was whether consumers would appreciate that unregulated entities would not be able to offer the same levels of protection as regulated entities.
A number of attendees said that there needed to be more education of the public about legal services and whether they would be protected or not, however, a number of regulators said that this was unlikely to have much impact.
If regulated entities want to stand apart from the unregulated crowd it seems to make sense for them to play their part in educating the consumers they would want to attract, not by improving their current marketing initiatives but by making more of the protections they offer.
Historically, regulatory and insurance information has been “hidden away” in small print or detailed terms and conditions, but it now seems that bringing such information out into the open could lead consumers to realise that buying cut-price services from unregulated entities could come to haunt them!
It will be interesting to see whether in the future we will see the main pages of law firm websites starting with:
Before we tell you what services we offer we want to draw your attention to the protections afforded to you when using us; this is important, because you may be thinking about using other providers who don’t offer the same protections and offer you services at a far lower price just to get your custom.
- Regulated – we are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA).
- Professional Indemnity Insurance – we always aim to provide a professional and competent service, however, sometimes mistakes happen; you can rest assured that should this happen in your case you will be insured under terms laid down by our regulator, the SRA.
- Complaints – we will work hard to ensure you are not given any reason to complain about what we do for you, but should you feel you have received poor service you can raise a complaint, which we will try and resolve in line with our internal complaints procedure. If we are unable to resolve matters with you internally you will be able to raise your complaint with the Legal Ombudsman in line with its procedures.
- Compensation Fund – this is a discretionary fund that provides compensation to those owed money by a regulated law firm; it helps:
- Provide a safety net for risks that professional indemnity insurance is unable to cover
- People who have suffered loss due to a solicitor’s personal dishonesty
- People who have experienced hardship due to a solicitor’s failure to account for the money they have received.
Protection of the public is at the very heart of regulators’ remits, and this came through very clearly in their various presentations.
In addition to hearing from various legal regulators, we also heard from Professor Stephen Mayson, Lead, Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation, who provided a very good insight into his research and the feedback he has had from various interested parties; he gave his thoughts on a number of areas:
- The lack of access to legal services by consumers – no change to the current regulatory landscape is not an option!
- Lawyers should be competent in the areas of law they offer – dabbling is not acceptable!
- There may be a case for specialist areas of work to be regulated by specialist regulators, for example, conveyancing regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, advocacy by the Bar Standards Board, immigration by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, etc.
- Risk-based and proportionate regulation should be introduced to specific areas of work (activity-based regulation)
- Regulatory independence – the role of representative and regulatory bodies should be split; the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives very much supports this move
- Appropriate changes cannot be made within the scope of the current Legal Services Act
- Change must come sooner rather than later
As expected, there has been some resistance to a number of the above thoughts; it will be interesting to see what Professor Mayson’s final report says and whether the government decides to act it in full, in part, or not at all!
It is very clear that whatever the regulatory landscape looks like in the future, law firms must ensure they offer legal services to consumers that are accessible, provided by competent lawyers, and are provided in line with regulatory requirements and protections.
Even if 2020 does not see any significant regulatory changes, it will certainly see plenty of focus from regulators on what lawyers do, so ensuring you are doing the right thing for your clients, and consumers generally, will be key!
Did you know that in addition to regular blog posts, Brian also hosts a monthly compliance update webinar? The webinar aims to cover all the latest news and important updates in the world of regulatory compliance, condensed into a 30-minute webinar.
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The Access Group can help with your legal compliance in relation to Risk and Compliance software, eLearning and lots more.
