Professional Paralegal Register: Closing the gap in consumer protection

In 2015, the Professional Paralegal Register was launched, driven by several factors driving this initiative forward: 

1. The Legal Services Act 2007, the primary objective of which was to open the legal services sector, making legal services more accessible and less costly to the consumer.
2. Recommendations made in the Legal Education & Training Review (LETR) published in June 2013, e.g.:

Recommendation 23
‘Consideration should be given by the Legal Services Board and representative bodies to the role of voluntary quality schemes in assuring the standards of independent paralegal providers outside the existing scheme of regulation. The Legal Services Board may wish to consider this issue as part of its work on the reservation and regulation of general legal advice.’ 

3. The virtual eradication of legal aid.
4. The growth of the unregulated paralegal profession which has an estimated 200,000 practitioners in England & Wales alone.

5. The protection of the consumer. With no statutory regulation for the paralegal profession, anyone can describe themselves as a paralegal whether they have experience or qualifications or neither.  

Some 7 years later, the Register has proved to be a major step towards discouraging poor or unprofessional services to the consumer. 

Why do I make this statement? Well, to date, the PPR Register Regulatory Committee has only had one complaint forwarded to it for review. This means that any complaints are being settled at either stage 1, with the Paralegal, or at stage 2, with the Recognised Body of the PPR (who are professional bodies). 

So, the aim of the PPR was therefore to bring a regulatory scheme for Paralegals and other unregulated providers, such as will writers, to enhance consumer protection. Closing the gap which put consumers of regulated providers at a disadvantage when it came to redress was and still is at the heart of the scheme.  

The current regulatory gap mainly exists with those who offer legal services in the unregulated sector and choose not to sign up for regulation via the PPR. The PPR is the only independent regulatory scheme available in the unregulated sector. 

Of course, we are all aware that users of unregulated providers cannot currently seek redress from the legal ombudsman. The PPR does have a compensation fund available to complainants, under certain circumstances, where they have used PPR members who hold a Paralegal Practising Certificate. The complaints procedure for consumers is free. 

So what’s next? The PPR scheme is of course voluntary, and this is where the Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation, published in 2020, has made some interesting suggestions on the future scope of regulation.

The future it suggests, may look like risk-based regulation rather than title-based, which I applaud as a sensible way forward. Competency, after all, is what the sector seeks to provide.

Further, it is imperative that unregulated providers can sit within a new regulatory framework so that the many benefits that are afforded to consumers can be maintained. 

With more than 30 years working in the sector, it is obvious to me that a National Register for all unregulated providers, that sits within a regulatory framework, with regulation based on risk is exactly what consumers need. 

If you are an unregulated provider and want to join the PPR contact us at info@ppr.org.uk