On Wednesday 6th March, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the Reshaping Legal Services Annual Conference 2025 at the King’s Fund London. The Legal Services Board is an independent regulator that oversees legal services in England and Wales. The body makes sure that regulations are in the interest of the public and that consumer interests are given priority.
At this event, I had the opportunity to be in a room full of professionals including solicitors, barristers, policy makers, regulators, chartered accountants and many more. The day consisted of multiple talks on different aspects of ‘reshaping legal services’ and focused on themes including access to justice, ethics and personal responsibility, and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
At the start of the event, everyone had the opportunity to meet different professionals and students attending the conference. There were many stalls set up upon arrival including Law Care, Support Through Court, The Solicitors’ Charity, The Black Solicitors Network, Association of Women Solicitors, Neurodiversity in Law and the Sole Practitioners Group. These were a great opportunity for everyone to familiarise themselves with the different organisations and opened me up to some that will be useful upon qualification.
The conference was first introduced by Catherine Brown and hosted by Dean Dunham and Tania Hardcastle who gave an overview of what the Legal Services Board do and how the event was going to run. The first speaker was Dr Liz Curran who spoke about her regulatory leadership on access to justice. This focused on a people centred approach, everyday justice and needs and the urge to be deliberate and intentional through cross collaboration. She highted we need to move beyond its not possible to what is possible.
Following this was a panel session building on collaboration to improve access to justice, highlighting what we can learn and what is holding others back. An importance was placed on local, national and statutory partnerships and embedding ethics with compliance. It was highlighted that by everyone doing more locally and collaborating, it can lead to changes on a national scale. These discussions were led by David Abbott and included Laura Pikney, Dan Hopewell, Emma Bates and Dr Sarah Nason.
The next panel session was focused around public trust. This talk contained some conflicting views between Llyod Hatton MP for South Dorset and tax lawyer Dan Neidle, as well as the other panel members that centred around the role of regulation in raising ethical standards. Ethics need to be at the core of legal practice, and it was disputed by the panel whether this lies with the regulators and policy makers or the individuals. These talks also included Richard Orpin and Dr Jim Baxer. It is necessary to look beyond policy and theory as highlighted by Professor Stephen Mayson, Sophie Wales, Thorrun Govind and Dr Roger Barker and ensure that ethics is at the forefront of everyone’s everyday practices.
The day ended with a discussion centred around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (DEI). This highlighted some truly shocking statistics including the absence of disabled individuals in the profession, the pay gap between white and ethnic minority barristers and lack of lawyers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This panel featured Patrick McCann, Dr Natasha Shotunde, Elizabeth Rimmer, Sarah Harriott, Olive Craig and Reena Parmar.
The most notable part of the experience was the focus on action. The prominent issues in the legal profession have been spoken about many times and need tackling through collaboration and cohesion. The law needs to reflect the society it serves and there is more that every individual can do on a small level, which with collaboration makes a difference on a bigger scale and can help to get a better reach nationally. I have seen this difference first hand with the work I do at the Speakeasy Employment Law Pro Bono Clinic, Crimestoppers and with ProBono Week. This practical experience has expanded my knowledge of access to justice through my participation in pro bono work. The conference was highly insightful, and I encourage anyone wanting to get involved with pro bono work to reach out to organisations and help your local community.
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