Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority published a report in January 2013 on progress with ABS during its first year. This shows that the pace of applications for and approvals of ABS licences has quickened. Of the 70 or so approvals granted by January 2013, 40 were approved over the months before that date.

Evidence that the approval rate is not slackening can be seen in the announcement at the beginning of March 2013 of the licence granted to BT Law Ltd. This is stated to bring the total of approvals to over 100.

Information from the SRA is at http://www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/press/abs-one-year-on.page

Information about BT Law Ltd is at http://www.btplc.com/news/articles/showarticle.cfm?articleid={2a29c4bb-5c5b-4ef3-861f-7c00a0c6653b}

The full register of ABS approvals is at http://www.sra.org.uk/absregister/

Do you get fed up with all those text messages or telephone calls inviting you to claim for an accident you never had or a PPI policy that you never bought?

The Ministry of Justice tries to regulate this seemingly uncontrolled and often unethical sector of the legal services market.
As a cheering end of year news item, the Ministry of Justice website published a press release that reports that between April and November 2012 209 companies were shut down and had their licences removed, three have been suspended and 140 have been warned.

This comes ahead of Government plans next year to give consumers even more protection against rogue firms. This includes making all businesses agree written contracts with customers before taking fees and an independent consumer complaints service which can compensate those who have received a raw deal.

For detail see http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/features/claims-management-crackdown

Since 2008, when section 194 of the Legal Services Act 2007 came into force, it has been possible for litigants who are assisted on a pro bono (for free) basis to ask for some costs from the losing side.
They do not get the money for themselves since, by definition, their case has been argued for nothing. But any pro bono costs that are awarded are paid to a nominated charity – the Access to Justice Foundation – which can then use the funds to promote other legal service activities.
The sums involved in no way compensate for the cuts the legal aid that will start to bite in April 2013. But it is a development which, while still in an embryonic stage, may help to create new ways of providing at least some access to justice.
More detail of the work of the Access to Justice Foundation is at http://www.accesstojusticefoundation.org.uk/

In an earlier blog entry, I noted the preliminary work of the Legal Education and Training Review. They have now published an essay by one of their consultants, Professor Richard Susskind on the future of legal education.
In my view, anyone engaged in legal education should read this – students, lecturers, professional trainers, practitioners.
His principal argument is that the business and technological environment within which law is developing is changing so rapidly that the review must try to anticipate what the shape of legal education should be for meeting legal services that will be developed in the future. He fears that too many of those engaged in legal education neither know nor care about how the practice of law is developing, with the result that there may be more attention paid to the past and the present rather than the future.
He urges law teachers and legal practitioners to develop much better interactions – practitioners coming into the law schools to bring academic subjects alive; law teachers sitting in legal practices to see how client demand and technological change is reshaping practice.
He also wants law teachers to understand better the new types of paralegal practice which will be an important feature of the new legal services world.
The lecture can be downloaded and read at http://letr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Susskind-LETR-final-Oct-2012.pdf

After the initial flurry of activity at the beginning of 2012, when the first round of ABS licences were granted by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (see blog entry in March 2012) and the Co-op announced its plans for the development of its legal services offer (see blog entry May 2012), there has been sure and steady progress on the ABS front.

Russell Jones and Walker, together with an Australian Firm, Slater and Gordon have a licence to develop ABS, based on their merged business.

Irwin Mitchell, a large UK based law firm, have acquired 3 ABS licences to develop their practice – they have been widely reported as intending to raise private capital by a flotation on the Stock Exchange.

The current list of firms granted ABS licences is available at http://www.sra.org.uk/absregister/

As well as ministerial changes there have been changes in two of the top judicial jobs.

Lord Phillips, who was the first President of the Supreme Court, reached retirement age this autumn. He is replaced as President, from 1 October 2012, by Lord David Neuberger – who was formerly the Master of the Rolls. See http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/news/new-president-of-the-supreme-court.html.

The resultant vacancy as Master of the Rolls is filled by Lord John Dyson, currently a member of the Supreme Court. See http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/appointment-of-master-of-the-rolls/