Speaking at the Bar Council’s annual conference last weekend, Michael Todd QC, the body’s chairman, said the two-and-a-half-year old Legal Services Board should be ditched as it is superfluous and is ‘looking for a reason for being’.

War of words

According to a report on the Legal Futures web site, the bar is involved in a ‘war of words’ with the umbrella regulator following recent LSB criticism that barristers had been slow to adapt to the reformed legal services market.
In his speech to the bar conference, Mr Todd lashed out at the board, lambasting it for talking ‘about key performance indicators,’ while barristers were driven by ‘the interests of justice, the public interest, the interests of clients’. Mr Todd went on to say: ‘The government is looking to make savings, we are seeking to promote the rule of law, to provide effective access to justice.’

Sympathetic

Nonetheless, according to Legal Futures, Mr Todd maintains that the government’s recently installed justice secretary, Chris Grayling, is sympathetic to suggestions that England’s legal profession is over-regulated.
Ironically, the LSB – which formally launched in January 2010 – was the product of several years of consultation aiming to remedy a perceived regulatory maze. The umbrella body is designed to monitor the profession’s ‘front line’ regulators, such as the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority.