Unique competition

I tend not to dwell on the past but I’ve felt compelled to mull over what I said in our last issue about the opening up of legal services.

This week, I joined a gathering of the great and the good at the House of Lords to mark the achievements of Anna Bradley, who steps down this month after five years as chair of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC). In that time, she has overseen great change, mostly from the impact of the Legal Services Act 2007 and the recognition by the Legal Services Board (LSB) of the CLC as one of the eleven approved regulators.

Not only does the CLC regulate the 1,200 licensed conveyancers in England and Wales, it can also issue ABS licenses, exercising its power in almost 50 cases up and down the country in the past few years. Although the CLC may represent less than a tenth of the number of lawyers under the Law Society’s umbrella, it is nonetheless a force to be reckoned with.

Last month, amendments to the Deregulation Bill were accepted by the House of Lords, meaning that the CLC will soon be able to licence specialist probate practitioners. At present, licenses can only be issued to practitioners who have already qualified as licensed conveyancers, but now its potential to challenge in areas traditionally the preserve of solicitors is ever greater. 

Also at the Lords was Sir Michael Pitt, chair of the LSB. I spoke to him about the super regulator’s objectives to protect and promote the interests of consumers and to promote competition in the provision of services in the legal sector in an increasingly consumer – and cost – driven society. His desire to understand the needs of consumers is quite correct and this became apparent as I moved my way around the room.

While speaking with the managing director of a Midlands-based, CLC-licensed ABS, it became clear to me that the opportunity to provide complementary legal services is clearly in the best interests of the consumer. The solicitors that the firm outsourced reserved work to were often slow or ineffective, which impacted on their ability to provide a satisfactory service to their clients. This became the driving force behind their decision to convert to an ABS and now to expand into private client work.

Consumer awareness and demand for ‘value for money’ services mean that we must find other ways to stand out from the competition. Although the Law Society has seen some return on its extended ‘Use a Professional. Use a Solicitor’ consumer campaign – which targets the conveyancing, wills and probate, family, criminal, business and personal sectors – it remains the responsibility of each firm and every solicitor to respond to the unique competition around them and to uphold the values that make us distinct in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Last time I warned that we have no option but to be ready to adapt to change and not to rest on our laurels, unintentionally aligning myself with the profession’s sci-fi community. Today, the message is the same, resistance may well prove to be futile, but as competition intensifies, what lies before us may still be life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Kevin Poulter, editor at large #SJPOULTER | editorial@solicitorsjournal.co.uk