- Manchester's JMW boosts revenues by 13% as firm moves to diversify
- Withers and Speechly Bircham call off merger after top-level talks
- Linklaters City finance partner Howard quits to join Sullivan in London
- Bevan Brittan becomes latest firm to make layoffs as spending cuts bite
- Trowers makes seven job cuts as redundancies at top 50 firms continue
- Skadden and White & Case among elite line-up on vodka giant restructuring
- US trio land lead roles on take-private of China tech outsourcing giant
- International firms call off merger
- Unanimous: profession votes for ‘training days’ action in protest over cuts
- Hundreds attend legal aid protest rally
- HMRC proposes crackdown on LLP ‘disguised employment’
- Small business spurning legal services – LSB research
- PCT will mean the death of Welsh justice, lawyers warn
- Welsh valleys merger
- Firms face rates pressure as almost 50% of GCs predict legal spend cuts
- Legal Week Intelligence
- Benchmarkers
- Asia Client Satisfaction Report 2012
- 214 Asia GCs polled: Linklaters, KWM and Ashurst win client plaudits
- Partners scale back hopes for year ahead as economic woes hit business confidence
- Fixed-fee billing favoured by 50% of corporates, LW research finds
- Partner hire: Nick Dean at Andrew Jackson
- Partners made up: Özge Atılgan Karakulak at Mehmet Gün & Partners
- Partners made up: Pelin Baysal at Mehmet Gün & Partners
- Partners made up: Orçun Çetinkaya at Mehmet Gün & Partners
- Lateral hires: John McInnes at Webb Henderson
- New partner: John Randle at Darbys Solicitors LLP
- New partner: Jonathan Kay at Darbys Solicitors LLP
- Withers and Speechly vote against merger
- Bevan Brittan becomes latest firm to announce redundancies
- Sullivan boosts finance and restructuring with Linklaters' Howard
- Olswang boosts pensions with Lawrence Graham hire
- SJ Berwin name poised to vanish as King & Wood merger vote looms
- Tribunal rules against Travers in pregnancy discrimination case
- Irwin Mitchell closes in on £200m turnover
5 October 2010
Exclusive: consumer panel puts plans for comparison website standards on ice
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has had to put on ice plans to develop best practice standards for legal comparison websites, Legal Futures has learned.
The work formed part of the panel’s 2010-11 workplan, published in March, but has been shelved because the panel has since been asked by the Legal Services Board (LSB) to investigate will-writing regulation. This is likely to be a time-intensive project which has forced the panel to reassess its priorities.
The panel is supported by just two members of staff and so its resources can only be stretched so far.
However, the panel believes there remains the need to define proper standards for comparison websites in the legal services market and it continues to monitor developments. The panel will return to the subject as it considers its work programme for 2011-12.
Panel chairwoman Dr Dianne Hayter said: “Having been asked by the LSB to investigate the important issue of the need to regulate will-writing companies, the panel has decided to concentrate on this in the coming period and to turn to the issue of comparison websites later. Given the weight given by the LSB to our input on referral fees, we consider that influencing their policy on current issues justifies this extra input on will writing.”
LSB research last year indicated that consumers would like to see price comparison websites in the legal market, and in its workplan the panel said it viewed such sites as “a positive development”.
But it continued: “However, in some sectors, concerns have been raised about businesses ‘gaming’ the sites and a lack of transparency about how these services operate. Regulators have needed to take a closer look in order to ensure a fair playing field and restore consumer confidence. The consumer panel is keen to ensure that the new breed of comparison websites in legal services do not fall into the same traps. We will draw up a set of good practice standards building on experience from other arenas and assess the extent to which the services meet the needs of users.”
Meanwhile, iCompareSolicitors.co.uk – which allows clients to rank and leave comments about their lawyers – is offering a free website to every firm that subscribes to its service. Founder Colin Mahoney said this would provide solicitors with “a vital and reliable source of new business."
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