Non-lawyers will be allowed to own law firms from October 6, 2011, the Legal Services Board announced today. The super-regulator announced that so-called alternative business structures will be able to apply for licences in the summer of next year, allowing corporations to provide legal services to the public from the first week of October.
David Edmonds, chairman of the Legal Services Board, said:
It also marks the end of law as a self-regulating profession.Today's announcement is a significant milestone. It gives certainty to the approved regulators [such as the Law Society and the Bar Council], the firms they regulate and to potential new entrants alike. Moreover, it paves the way for real benefits to be delivered to consumers on the fastest possible timetable.
Post your comment
Joshua Rozenberg is an independent legal commentator who presents Law in Action on BBC Radio 4.
- World Youth Day Diary: Day One
- Breivik and Anti-Muslim Bigotry
- Who'd be a TLA?
- Daniel Johnson on Elena Bonner
- In praise of the essay
- Told You So
- Analysis: Al-Qaeda After Bin Laden
- Help JIMAS
- How Western Jihadis See Libya
- Sumption plays hard to get
- The Commentator — A Serious New Website
- Supreme Court: runners, riders and delays
- In defence of Quilliam
- Self-censorship in the British Media
- Parliament Square is not Tahrir Square
- How does this end?
- Gaddafi has little to fear from ICC
- "We call them the nutters, because that's what they are"
- Peter Oborne's Hypocrisies
