MarketLegal Services Act 2007
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Legal Services Act 2007

The Legal Services Act 2007 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that seeks to liberalise and regulate the market for legal services in England and Wales, to encourage more competition and to provide a new route for consumer complaints. It also makes provisions about the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007. The act made it an offence to wilfully pretend to be a barrister.

Regulatory objectives
Section 1 of the act defines eight regulatory objectives: • Protecting and promoting the public interest; • Supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law; • Improving access to justice; • Protecting and promoting the interests of consumers of legal services; • Promoting competition in the provision of legal services; • Encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession; • Increasing public understanding of the citizen's legal rights and duties; • Promoting and maintaining adherence to the professional principles; The professional principles are: • Authorised persons should act with independence and integrity; • Authorised persons should maintain proper standards of work; • Authorised persons should act in the best interests of their clients; • Persons who exercise before any court a right of audience, or conduct litigation in relation to proceedings in any court, by virtue of being authorised persons should comply with their duty to the court to act with independence in the interests of justice, and • Affairs of clients should be kept confidential. ==The Legal Services Board==
The Legal Services Board
Sections 2 to 7 and schedule 1 create the Legal Services Board with a duty to promote the regulatory objectives. David Edmonds was appointed the first chair of the board on 23 April 2008 and nine members were appointed on 17 July. The members took up post on 1 September 2008 and the board became fully operational on 1 January 2010. The act also created a Consumer Panel to represent consumers (ss. 8–11) ==Reserved legal activities==
Reserved legal activities
Section 12 and Schedule 2 define six reserved legal activities: ==Authorised persons and approved regulators==
Authorised persons and approved regulators
Authorised persons are either (s. 18): ==Regulation of approved regulators==
Regulation of approved regulators
Approved regulators have a duty to promote the regulatory objectives (s. 28). If they fail to do so, or if they fail in some other way to comply with the Act, the Legal Services Board can: ==Alternative business structures and licensed bodies==
Alternative business structures and licensed bodies
Before the coming into force of the act, lawyers in England and Wales could only practice as: • Solicitors, as sole traders or in partnerships with other solicitors; • Barristers, as sole traders; or • Employees providing legal services to their employer. The act allows alternative business structures (ABSs) with non-lawyers in professional, management or ownership roles. This allowed supermarkets to offer legal services. The act creates a system whereby approved regulators can authorise licensed bodies to offer reserved legal services (ss.71–111). The Solicitors Regulation Authority licensed the first set of ABSs in 2012, including Cooperative Legal Services. ==Complaints==
Complaints
Approved regulators must operate a complaints system as part of their internal regulatory arrangements (s. 112). Section 114 of the Act creates an Office for Legal Complaints which the section 115 stipulates must administer an ombudsman scheme (ss. 114–158 /Sch. 15). Section 114 came into force on 7 March 2008. On 3 February 2009, the Legal Services Board announced the board members for the Office for Legal Complaints and the Office officially launched on 24 July 2009. The new scheme was the Legal Ombudsman, which has exclusive first instance jurisdiction for complaints regarding legal professionals. The Legal Ombudsman began receiving complaints on 6 October 2010. This scheme replaced the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner and Legal Services Ombudsman, which had been established in the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (s. 159). The Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman closed in 2011. For the purposes of complaints only, claims management services are regarded as reserved legal activities and the Claims Management Services Regulator as an approved regulator (s. 161). ==Legal professional privilege==
Legal professional privilege
The act extends legal professional privilege to authorised persons other than barristers and solicitors (s. 190). This section came into force in 2010. ==Costs in pro bono proceedings==
Costs in pro bono proceedings
Where a litigant is represented in civil proceedings on a pro bono basis, it would be contrary to the indemnity principle to award costs to that person. Section 194 allows the court to order a payment to a charity in lieu. == Notes ==
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