Legal regulation failing to prevent consumer harm
In a follow-up to his Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation published in June 2020, he said that structural reform was more urgent than ever in order to mitigate harms caused by consumer inability to access legal services and the consequences when things go wrong with the service provided.
Professor Mayson said bringing unregulated providers within the scope of regulation and promoting the concept of “legal wellbeing” would reduce unmet need and improve competition.
The findings in Consumer harm and legal services: From fig leaf to legal well-being are consistent with the 2020 report which said all providers of legal services, whether legally qualified or not, should be registered and regulated by a single regulator.
The honorary professor of law at University College, London explained that since then, a significant issue that arose in discussing his findings was the nature of the consumer harm that regulation was supposed to be protecting against.
The supplementary report looked specifically at this question and the extent to which the current regulatory framework could deal with it.
You can read more about Professor Mayson’s analysis is his piece for CILEX Journal