Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation

An event organised by the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law

• Chaired by Professor Stephen Mayson, Honorary Professor, UCL Faculty of Laws

About the event

In July 2018, the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law announced that Professor Stephen Mayson would be leading a fundamental review of the current regulatory framework for legal services.  This independent review is intended in part to explore the longer-term and related issues raised by the 2016 Competition and Markets Authority’s ‘Legal Services market study’ and its recommendations.

The Review is being conducted in three stages.  The first stage began in October 2018 with the publication of three working papers offering an assessment of the current regulatory framework, and then exploring the preliminary issues of the rationale for legal services regulation and the possible scope of such regulation.  These papers formed the basis of meetings, discussions and submissions during the Autumn of 2018.

The second stage, running from February to June 2019, includes the publication of updates to the first three working papers, along with the publication of two further working papers addressing the focus of regulation (activities, individuals, entities, professions, etc) and the structure of regulation (who should the regulators be, how many, the need for oversight regulation, independence of regulators from government and the regulated, etc).  Further meetings, discussions and submissions are taking place in the first half of 2019.

The third stage will see the publication of updates to all the working papers, along with an interim report with findings and conclusions, planned for September 2019.  These will be followed by further meetings and discussions during the Autumn, and the final report should be published and submitted to the Ministry of Justice in January 2020.

With the Review now firmly under way and progressing well, this evening event will take place after all five of the Review’s working papers have been published.  It is an opportunity to hear from Professor Mayson about the key issues and challenges arising from the Review, and engage in discussion with him and others about the possibilities for a new approach to legal services regulation. 

Further details about the Review’s terms of reference, the Advisory Panel, and copies of the working papers are available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ethics-law/publications/2018/sep/independent-review-legal-services-regulation

Book your place (free of charge)