On 25 May 2023, Alan Kershaw, Chair of the Legal Services Board (LSB), Catherine Brown, LSB Board Member, and Matthew Hill, LSB CEO, met stakeholders from the East Midlands to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the legal services sector.
Visit to NLS Legal in Nottingham
The day started with a visit to NLS Legal which offers legal services across a range of practice areas to those who are unable to afford or otherwise access legal advice and assistance. Their qualified and experienced lawyers are assisted in providing advice and representation by Nottingham Law School students.
The LSB met lawyers, students, academics and teachers from NLS Legal and Nottingham Law School and discussed their work and experiences.
LSB stakeholder event
Later in the day, the LSB hosted a stakeholder event with representatives from across the legal services sector.
- A note of the discussion will be published shortly
- The presentation delivered by Margie McCrone (pdf), Head, Strategy and Policy at the LSB
LSB’s Chair’s opening remarks
Alan Kershaw’s opening remarks are provided below. Check against delivery.
Good afternoon. I’m Alan Kershaw, and as the new Chair of the Legal Services Board, I’m delighted to welcome you all to this event. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. I’m also joined by LSB Board member Catherine Brown and our Chief Executive, Matthew Hill. LSB colleagues are also in the room.
At the LSB, we recognise the importance of getting out of London and listening to the views, opinions and experiences of people outside the Capital. We oversee legal services regulation across the whole of England and Wales, and it’s great to be here in the East Midlands, specifically Nottingham, to hear your perspectives.
I’m less than two months into my tenure as the Chair of the LSB, and this is my first official stakeholder engagement event, so I’m particularly interested to hear what you have to say. This event really is about listening to you and sharing ideas, so I encourage you to participate in the discussion.
At the LSB, we have set out a strategy to make sure that anyone needing legal advice can shop around easily and compare the quality of the services on offer. They should be able to find a legal services provider that best meets their needs at a price they can afford. Consumers and small businesses should have confidence that the legal support they receive is provided by a competent lawyer with up-to-date skills and training and a high standard of professional ethics. They should also know that they are protected and can seek redress if something goes wrong.
We also want to ensure that regulation supports and enables the sector to be competitive and innovative. And that it encourages an independent, strong, diverse and inclusive profession.
Hopefully, we all share this ambition, and that’s why you are here today. Because achieving this vision will require every single one of us across the legal services sector to play our role. As the Chair of the LSB, I am committed to ensuring relegation plays its part, and I’m also committed to doing all I can to foster and encourage collaboration that supports access to justice.
So I’m particularly keen today to hear examples of where the LSB can support collaboration and where organisations are working together effectively to drive improvements for consumers and the profession.
We saw a great example of collaboration this afternoon when we visited Nottingham Law School’s teaching law firm, NLS Legal. It was a privilege to see their work supporting access to justice and inspiring future lawyers. I’m sure we’ll discuss this and other examples over the course of this event.
We have a good mix of people in the room, including lawyers, students, academics, teachers, and third-sector organisations. But before I open the floor for a discussion, Margie McCrone, our Head of Strategy and Policy, will provide a brief introduction to the LSB, outline the themes of our strategy for legal services regulation, and set out some of our work areas. She will then suggest some possible topics to help lubricate our conversation.