News In Focus
5 July 2007
SCC supports legal services "super complaint"
There is an urgent need for greater competition in Scottish legal services, a market that has for too long neglected the interests of consumers and put the vested interests of lawyers first.
So says the Scottish Consumer Council in its response to the Office of Fair Trading relating to the "super complaint" lodged by the Which? organisation.
The OFT has to decide by the beginning of next month what action to take on the complaint, which focuses on the rules preventing solicitors and advocates entering into partnership with each other or with non-lawyers.
In its submission the SCC maintains: "The overarching principle should be that, unless there is a clear and valid justification for retaining a restriction on competition, it should be removed. Legal services need to be modernised, bringing them into the 21st century and discarding those old-fashioned and outmoded practices that still exist."
While the SCC supports the lifting of the restrictions on advocates entering into partnership with other advocates and with solicitors, and on direct access to members of the bar, it regards the rules relating to solicitors as much the more important given that they are the normal point of contact when members of the public require legal advice.
Recognising that concerns exist over independence of employed solicitors and regulation of multi-disciplinary practices, it nevertheless believes these are possibly overstated and can be overcome. And if fears about access to justice were realised, "the OFT could, if necessary, use its competition powers to ensure that concentration did not distort the market".
The SCC also proposes a radical restructing of the governing arrangements for both solicitors and advocates, with their current ruling councils being replaced by a body with a majority lay membership. "The Society's present structure", says the SCC, "leaves it open to the criticism that its view of what is in the public interest is not sufficiently informed by opinions from outwith the solicitor profession"; the change proposed "should lead to increased public confidence, transparency and effectiveness".
Were that not to happen, it concludes, the professional bodies should be left with only a representation function and their powers of regulation should be removed.