Recently we invited a group of senior lawyers to reflect on ‘Big Bang’, which was celebrating its 20th anniversary at the time. They pointed out that the revolution that swept though the City went far beyond the abolition of restrictive practices in the Stock Exchange to include the establishment of a new regulatory framework to replace the gentlemen’s club that had been running things until then. This played into the hands of the lawyers, and explains the dramatic expansion of the leading commercial law firms since then.
But until now, this revolution in legal practice had not been accompanied by the modernisation of its own regulatory framework. Deal lawyers, who regard themselves as being in the thick of things in the City, may baulk at the suggestion that their profession failed to adapt to change. But it was only last year that a set of conflict of interest rules was introduced that people could actually understand. Up until then law firms were left to interpret the rules pretty much as they saw fit. It took the Law Society years to introduce the new conflicts rules. One senses that the newly-formed Solicitors Regulation Authority will be rather more fleet of foot, especially as it will ultimately have a new Legal Services Board, modelled loosely on the Financial Services Authority, breathing down its neck.
