Current regulations not fit for today’s legal market

There is a need to reform the current patchwork of regulation that governs legal services in Scotland, says Graham Matthews

Change has been a constant feature for the legal sector in recent years. While solicitors have readily adapted to meet the needs of their clients, the current regulatory regime for legal services in Scotland is still rooted in legislation introduced almost 40 years ago. It is struggling to keep pace and is, put simply, not fit to meet the demands of today’s legal market.

We have long argued for the need to reform the current patchwork of regulation that governs legal services in Scotland. It needs replaced with new, flexible legislation which will address the challenges of modern legal practice, while ensuring that consumer protection remains at its core.

Scotland’s legal sector is a successful one. It supports over 20,000 high quality jobs, including over 11,500 practising solicitors, and generates over £1.2bn for the Scottish economy each year. There is a strong economic case for the Law Society being able to seek to become a regulator of legal services beyond Scotland. Having a regulatory model for cross-border law firms could mean we are a more attractive jurisdiction for firms to base their operations.

We also want any new legislation to encompass the unregulated legal advice sector. We are aware that many consumers who believe that they have obtained advice from a qualified, regulated legal professional, only find out they have no recourse to redress when things go wrong. Connected to this is protecting the term ‘lawyer’. To practise as a Scottish solicitor you must be qualified, insured and regulated by the Law Society. Yet there is no such requirement for anyone calling themselves a lawyer. Recent research has shown that the public don’t seeadifferencebetweensolicitor and lawyer. We know that there are people using the title ‘lawyer’ who don’t have any legal qualifications and are not regulated. It means if something goes wrong there are no protections in place.

We also want to be able to open up new membership options for other legal professionals, such as paralegals and legal technicians. That way we can help them develop, improve standards, provide regulation which will enhance consumer confidence in legal services and the profession.

We know that less than 1 per cent of transactions carried out by the legal profession result in a complaint. However, it is still important to streamline the current complaints system, which for many is slow and overly bureaucratic. We have recommended simplifying the current system so that, while the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission would continue to handle service complaints and the Law Society would deal with all matters of professional discipline of Scottish solicitors, either organisation could receive complaints and pass on those relevant to the other body. This would create a simpler, speedier and more cost effective process for everyone involved.

And as we look to the future, there is no doubt that technological advances will bring increasing use of artificial intelligence in delivering legal services. A new regulatory framework should have the capability and flexibility to make provision for this. After all, in another 10 years we may well have to regulate the robots that are providing legal advice to the public as well as Law Society members and their firms. Graham Matthews, president of the Law Society of Scotland