The Law Society could be about to lose practising fee funding with the Ministry of Justice saying they intend for lawyers to no longer be required to make a financial contribution to their representative body.
Details of the proposal are expected “in the spring” this year.
A spokesman for the MoJ told Legal Futures: “the government intends to make regulatory bodies independent from their representative bodies, which should reduce lawyers’ practising fees in some cases”
He reportedly continued on to say independence would make “the different responsibilities of regulators and representative bodies, and their respective costs, more transparent”.
The SRA have publicly stated they would like to see the body to be held by account by the House of Commons justice select committee.
In an interview with PoliticsHome last week, SRA chief executive Paul Philip said: “We think that we should be accountable to the public through Parliament, not accountable to an organisation that represents and lobbies on behalf of solicitors.
“We have written to the select committee asking if we could become accountable to Parliament through that route.
“If solicitors set their own standards, it is essentially marking their own homework. We think in order to bolster public credibility the people who set the standards have to be independent of the representative body and be independent of government. Setting standards is the role of the regulator.
“Most people taking legal advice from a solicitor don’t know much about the law and are relying on them doing the right thing. That being the case, it is right that those setting and monitoring standards are independent and focused on the interests of the public, not the welfare of solicitors.
“Solicitors currently don’t have the choice of whether to contribute to the funding of the Law Society or not. Whereas when you look at the British Medical Association – doctors have a choice over whether or not they join. Solicitors don’t have that choice; it is a mandatory tax whether the Law Society speak for you or not, just like trade unions used to be. The model is outdated so this is one area in which I’m sure we’ll see change.”
