Legal regulation needs risk focus

This research showed that unregulated providers such as will-writers take about 10% of the overall market. Some evidence suggests this share is growing, with over 200,000 unregulated providers already, and that the share is larger in some areas such as personal injury and for certain types of customers such as SMEs. There is also some evidence that some consumers do not understand the distinction between regulated and unregulated providers.

Jonathan Rees, CILEx Regulation chair, summed up a wide-ranging and lively debate by noting that CRL’s view is that the current legal framework needs to be updated to reflect the huge changes over the last 25 years. Consumers are more diverse and demanding, regulators need to be able to work independently, and technology, notably Artificial Intelligence, will have growing implications for how legal services are delivered and how consumers access them.

Views differed on whether unregulated activities should be brought within the ambit of the 2007 Act, but all agreed that good regulation in the public interest was a prerequisite for growth. There was broad support for the notion that risk assessment needed to be at the heart of any new system alongside the current regulation of title. The distinction between regulated and unregulated services at the moment owed more to history than risk.

Consumers needed help and support to differentiate between regulated and unregulated providers, building on the transparency work the LSB was championing. While new legislation was unlikely to be an imminent prospect, there was much that regulators, consumer groups, representative bodies, trade associations and academics could do in advance to create a consensus on what changes made sense.

Session attendees included the Legal Services Consumer Panel, Legal Services Board, SRA, Institute of Professional Will Writers, UCL, Council for Licensed Conveyancers and MoJ. The IRN research on the unregulated legal sector was published in November 2024.

CRL, uniquely among current legal regulators, oversees both authorised members such as Chartered Legal Executives as well as around 9000 paralegals. CILEx Regulation regulates Chartered Legal Executive lawyers, other members of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and law firms. 77% of those regulated are women, 15% are non-white and 43% did not go to university.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives is the professional association representing 18,000 Chartered Legal Executives, paralegals and legal professionals. CILEx Regulation oversees the education, qualification and practice standards of the legal professionals it regulates and works with the Chartered Institute to ensure that qualifications are at the right level and appropriate to the work that regulated members do.

CILEx Regulation aims to ensure that regulated members are fully aware of their obligations to consumers, colleagues, the courts and the public, and that they maintain proper standards of professional conduct. When necessary, CILEx Regulation deals with complaints against regulated individuals and firms.