The Legal Services Act 2007 will herald a revolution in the provision of legal services. Many think the consequences of the Act may be as profound for the legal profession as Big Bang was for the City 20 years ago. Anyone who has read the Legal Services Board’s (LSB’s) draft business plan cannot help but notice the prominence given to promoting the interests of consumers of legal services. It is right that the profession, and the Bar in particular, should engage in vigorous debate about the different structures that are necessary to provide a wide variety of legal services, whether any of the newly-available structures will suit the provision of legal services by barristers and, if so, the consequences of such alternative structures being adopted.
But while those issues are grabbing the headlines in the professional press, and will attract increasing attention in the months to come, there is another, quieter – and, perhaps, even more important revolution occurring.
