Our beloved super-regulator the Legal Services Board last week published its 10-year report into the legal sector. We presume it didn’t take 10 years to write.
As usual with these reports, the LSB briefly acknowledges that client satisfaction is high and competition has increased before finding something to gripe about. So we heard the familiar complaint that people do not use lawyers when they need to and believe that legal advice is too expensive.
But the focus on unmet need cuts both ways. The LSB has been around for 11 years. Given that one of its principal aims was to improve access to justice, one wonders what exactly this quango is supposed to have achieved?
Obiter would also question the merits of some of the research cited in the report. The LSB says that a survey of members of the public showed that 88% believed ‘Law is a game in which the skilful and resourceful are more likely to get what they want’.
Quite what this truism adds to the sum of human understanding is unclear.
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