Last year we took the decision to take a step back from the existing regulatory structures and consider the underlying purpose of regulation of legal services, the legal services professions and the legal services market. We commissioned Chris Decker and George Yarrow from the Regulatory Policy Institute to write a report summarising what economics in particular can teach us. This report was never intended to be the last word on the subject, but we hoped that it might spur debate and lead to greater academic interest, both in and beyond law schools, in the topic of legal services regulation.
We are publishing this report, together with this collection of essays which provide responses from a variety of perspectives, at a fascinating time in the development of the regulation in legal services, both in England and Wales and indeed globally.