Newsletter – December 2020

From the CEO

You might be aware that part of your practising fee is made up of levies, which the CLSB must pass on to other organisations. Two of those organisations are currently seeking approval for a budget increase. The increase will be recovered from you, and your fellow legal practitioners, through practising fees in future years. Now is the time to have your say on their plans.

In 2021, approximately £22 of your practising fee will be passed on to the Legal Services Board (LSB), around £8 to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) and £9 to the Legal Choices website.

In relation to Legal Choices, the CLSB has committed to providing funding for the next three years, but the amount of the funding will not go up during that period. In fact, we expect it to go down. Conversely, LSB and LeO are both asking for more money from the lawyers who fund them.

LSB recently published a forward-looking strategy for the legal services sector, along with its 2021-22 business plan. New activities that LSB will be undertaking next year include reviewing the scope of legal regulation, developing a legal support strategy for small businesses and providing simple legal products. To pay for this, the LSB is asking for a total budget of £4.1m, representing an increase of 4.4% or £175k on this year’s budget. By way of comparison, the CLSB’s total budget for 2021 is £183k, which includes the levies that we must pass on. A consultation on the LSB’s proposals is now open, closing on 5 February 2021.

The Legal Ombudsman is also consulting on its budget for next year, with a closing date of 15 January. In 2020, LeO asked for a budget increase but was turned down by LSB, leaving LeO with a so-called “standstill” budget for this year. LeO acknowledges it was under-performing even before the standstill budget, and the situation is now worse. Under new leadership, it wants to address these problems and deliver a redress scheme that better serves both lawyers and their clients. To do this, it is seeking a budget increase of 19% to fund a comprehensive recovery plan.

LSB’s and LeO’s plans affect you, both as a member of the legal community and as a lawyer who funds LSB and LeO through your practising fee. If you have views on the proposals being made by these organisations, we would encourage you to respond to their consultations, or let us know and we can reflect your views in our own response.

In the meantime, from me and everyone at the CLSB, we hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday period. See you next year.

Kate Wellington

CEO

Regulatory News

Appointment of Professor Carl Stychin as Independent Education Adviser

We are pleased to announce that Professor Carl Stychin has been appointed as Independent Education Adviser to the CLSB’s executive and board.

Professor Stychin is currently Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Professor of Law in the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. He has extensive expertise in the education and training of professionals, including lawyers. More information can be found in his biography on our website.

Please complete the 2020 diversity survey

If you didn’t complete our 2020 diversity survey when you renewed your practising certificate, please do so by 31 December 2020. You can access the survey here.

Around half of all Costs Lawyers have completed the survey so far. This is nearly double the response rate from previous years – which is a fantastic effort – but we still need to do better to ensure our diversity data is reliable. If you have not yet completed the survey, we would ask you to do so now.

In 2021 we will be looking at ways to capture your diversity data more permanently, so we only need to ask you once and then you can tell us if something changes.

Practising certificate renewals

We have now received applications for a 2021 practising certificate from the vast majority of Costs Lawyers. If you have not yet applied, or there are aspects of your application that remain outstanding, please complete the process as soon as possible to ensure you remain on the register of Costs Lawyers next year. We hope you found the new online application process quick and easy to use. If you have any feedback to help us refine the process in future years, please get in touch.

Holiday period office closure

Our office will be closed from 23 December 2020 to 1 January 2021 for the holiday period, other than for urgent enquiries. We will reopen on Monday 4 January 2021.

If you have an urgent enquiry during this period, please send it by email with the word “URGENT” in the subject line. Urgent matters might include, for example, a query or complaint that poses a serious and immediate risk to a client or the public.

Non-urgent email and phone enquiries, including enquiries relating to 2021 practising certificates, will be dealt with as soon as possible after 4 January.

Tell us about your life in the law

Our colleagues at LawCare have launched a ground breaking research study called Life in the Law. The study will enhance our collective understanding of the issues that affect the mental health and wellbeing of legal professionals, and pave the way for putting appropriate support mechanisms in place. Complete LawCare’s anonymous online questionnaire here by 31 December.

The results of the questionnaire will be published next year and will form the basis of an academic paper. LawCare will then bring the legal community together to discuss the findings and consider the way forward. Ultimately, the data will help LawCare drive long-lasting cultural change in legal workplaces, to benefit both present and future generations of lawyers and staff.

Legal Choices progress report

Legal Choices is a collaborative project between the legal services regulators to promote public legal education. It is funded by regulated professionals, including Costs Lawyers, through practising fees. Read about how your money has been spent in the 2020 Legal Choices progress report.

The Legal Choices website provides independent, objective and factual information that helps people get to grips with legal services. The CLSB, along with other regulators, has committed to ongoing involvement in the project for a further three years.

Spotlight on… legal market dynamics

In this newsletter, we turn our spotlight on the factors that drive competition between legal professionals. Paul Kellaway, Assistant Director at the Competition and Markets Authority, talks about the CMA’s targeted review of the legal services market.

We think that it is important for users of legal services to understand what they are purchasing, but very often relevant information that could be provided upfront isn’t. We think that having better quality information will lead to more informed choices that gives people even more confidence in their lawyer.

Read More

Up and Coming…

Expect more from us shortly on:

  • Launch of the new CPD regime in January 2021
  • Updated guidance on ATE insurance
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