As Parliament prepares far-reaching reforms for the legal profession in the United Kingdom, the British government is refusing to yield to growing pressure from the U.K.’s legal profession to amend a highly controversial aspect of the pending legislation, the Legal Services Bill. If the government gets its way, it would control appointments to the Legal Services Board, a new regulator created to police the profession.
The U.K. legal market is concerned about the provision’s possible impact on the profession’s independence. On June 1, in a show of unanimity unusual among the U.K.’s largest firms, the senior partners of the five Magic Circle firms and Geoffrey Vos QC, the chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales, wrote to junior finance minister Ed Balls to register their strong disapproval.
