Legal Services Board (LSB) chair Alan Kershaw has resigned from his post, a month short of two years into his four-year term of office.

Kershaw, a founding member of the Institute of Regulation, last week notified Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood that he intended to stand down for “personal considerations”.

Before taking office under the previous government, Kershaw held a wide range of non-executive positions, including with regulatory bodies supervising doctors, actuaries, dentists, opticians and pharmacists.

He was a former CEO of CILEX Regulation – which has disputed plans for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to take over the regulation of legal executives – and a former lay board member of the SRA itself between 2006 and 2008.

He also sat on the board of IPReg (the Intellectual Property Regulation Board) for five years. He is a former civil servant, previously working for the General Medical Council before embarking on a portfolio career.

LSB chief executive Craig Westwood said: “Alan leaves with our gratitude for the leadership he has provided as chair of the LSB.”

Westwood added that Kershaw had brought valuable expertise in professional regulation to its work, having succeeded Helen Philips who had been in the role for eight years. Kershaw also recruited Westwood as CEO following long-term incumbent Matthew Hill’s decision to join the Chartered Institute of Insurance in January last year.

Westwood said: “Under Alan’s leadership, the LSB has refocused regulation’s role in promoting technology and innovation that increase access to legal services. The LSB has also sharpened its expectations for regulators to improve how lawyers and law firms handle consumer complaints.”

The Ministry of Justice will recruit a new permanent chair for the LSB alongside an interim chair, having previously appointed Richard Orpin in the interregnum between Phillips and Kershaw. Pending that appointment, the LSB’s senior independent director Catherine Brown will chair the board. Kershaw will remain as chair of the Architects Registration Board, a position he has held since 2020.

During Kershaw’s tenure at the LSB, it produced research on barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion in law, and reports exploring pipelines to judicial diversity and legal technology. He also commented on professional ethics in his most recent blog in January.

The LSB was, however, heavily criticised for overreach by Nick Vineall KC, the 2023 chair of the Bar Council. Vineall called for a government review of the oversight regulator, a suggestion sharply rejected by the LSB. In turn, the LSB has scrutinised the Bar’s regulator, the Bar Standards Board, for poor performance.

The LSB also commissioned an independent report into the Axiom Ince collapse with Northern Irish law firm Carson McDowell, triggering subsequent enforcement action. This followed a determination by the LSB that the SRA “did not take all the steps it could or should have taken” in preventing that collapse.

A further LSB-commissioned report by Carson McDowell concerning the collapse of a Sheffield-based claims firm, SSB Law, is pending.  

The SRA’s outgoing CEO Paul Philip announced his retirement late last week.