Editor's blog | Riding the regulatory tide

The profession is paying a hefty price for being so inward looking for so many years as a new regulatory order takes root on the ashes of self-regulation.  The latest step down this road came yesterday when the Legal Services Board made a formal recommendation to the Lord Chancellor that will-writing and estate administration should become reserved activities.

This could involve setting up a new frontline regulator responsible for policing the new rules, potentially adding to the administrative burden and regulatory costs. Either way, for independent solicitors, this will bring no guarantee in return that clients will be beating a path to their doors instead of going to the Co-op or online.

But there could be worse things for the profession than making will-writing a reserved activity. It’s based on a fair aspiration shared by all in the sector. The question is whether it is the most appropriate response to the perceived lack of protection for consumers.

Talk to some solicitors in private and some will honestly admit that straightforward wills don’t require advanced lawyering skills. Which is why some are prepared to offer low fixed fees for the service; and which also why some online providers offer perfectly acceptable products.

The change of tack at Chancery Lane is symptomatic of the conundrum. In a speech in early July chief executive Des Hudson challenged the findings in the Legal Services Board’s consultation paper that solicitors were almost as likely to draft poor quality wills as will-writers.

Hudson defended the high degree of competence among solicitors and said existing regulation offered adequate guarantees for consumers. The focus, he said, should be on driving up standards instead of using the regulation of will-writing as “a Trojan horse to fill the market with other professional groups”. His alternative plan is to launch a new will-writing quality scheme that should see off will-writers.

Will-writers don’t give a hoot about the growlings coming out of Chancery Lane. The more forward-thinking ones will welcome tighter regulation. It will give them the credibility they are craving for. As to consumers, they are not interested in the details of the regulatory framework, just in knowing there is a protection system in place.

So it was interesting to see that the tone of the Law Society’s response to the LSB’s proposal last week was more conciliatory. President Lucy Scott-Moncrieff didn’t directly criticise the super-regulator. She was “pleased” that Southampton Row shared the society’s concerns about consumer protection and urged the LSB to “proceed swiftly” to ensure that consumers were “protected from bad advice and untrained providers”.

Making will-writing a reserved activity may not resolve all the issues identified in relation to the quality of will-writing. But in the absence of credible alternatives, the profession has much to gain in supporting it.