Since the Legal Services Act 2007
enabled barristers to take on clients ‘directly’ essentially bypassing a
solicitor but undertaking the work they would have done, and even prior to this
when solicitors became able to obtain higher rights of audience and essentially
appear in the higher courts of England and Wales where only barristers had been
able to before, the line distinguishing the legal roles of ‘solicitor’ and ‘barrister’
has become blurred. With increasing overlap in the two branches of the profession,
the regulators have been forced to re-think the way the two are regulated when
work can now be done almost by either one.
Court forms that ask for an applicant’s
solicitor must now take into account that the applicant may have instructed a
barrister directly, as just one example. Legal Futures has reported that the
Legal Services Board is looking into a new way to regulate lawyers as a whole,
rather than separately, when they are potentially performing the same function.
Just like any other country in the world that has a single profession, the LSB
is investigating whether the future of our legal profession will be forced to
adapt further than the advances it is already making. Legal Futures say that “the issue will be debated in full at the board’s
strategy session in September, which will start to consider “the extent to
which [activity based regulation] fits alongside title-based education,
authorisation and regulation or may gradually supersede aspects of the current
architecture over time”. This is quite a progressive step, to regulate
all lawyers on the particular jobs that they are doing, rather than through the
traditional system of separation.
This approach may
signal a significant move towards a more stream-lined profession where
specialisms remain but with increasing flexibility to meet the demands of
particular clients and the ability to provide a legal service that will satisfy
all users of the justice system.