Newsroom

OFT welcomes Clementi recommendations to reform the legal profession

15 December 2004         

Much-needed improvements to competition and choice for users of legal services should result from the recommendations for reform in the Clementi Report on the regulatory framework for legal services in England and Wales, published today.

The report is available from the DCA website

The Clementi Report recommends reform that would make regulation less restrictive and more effective. The OFT supports changes that would increase the freedom of legal services providers to adapt their services and businesses to their customers' needs, and that ensure that regulation is in the public interest, promoting competition and innovation.

Welcoming the Report's proposals, John Vickers, OFT Chairman, said:

'The Clementi recommendations combine deregulation - greater freedom for legal service providers to compete - with better regulation. Users of legal services and the wider public will benefit from early and effective reform to secure these improvements.'

NOTES

1. In March 2001 the OFT published its report on 'Competition in Professions' (see press release 10/01 and the progress update in press release 21/02) which highlighted a number of significant restrictions on the provision of legal services. The most significant restrictions which remain to be addressed are rules which: prohibit partnerships between barristers and between barristers and other professionals (both lawyers and non-lawyers); prohibit solicitors from entering partnerships with members of other professions (both lawyers and non-lawyers); prevent solicitors in employment of non-solicitors from providing services to third parties and which prohibit litigation by barristers at the independent bar. The implementation of the Clementi Report's recommendations on legal disciplinary practices would substantially reduce these restrictions.

2.  In June 2004 OFT published its response to the Clementi Review.
Download response (pdf 188 kb)

3. Under the Enterprise Act 2002, the OFT has advisory responsibilities relating to the competition implications of proposed rules and regulations. These apply to rules governing legal professional services as to other areas of the economy. The OFT also has advisory powers specific to certain important rules relating to the provision of legal services under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

Back to:2004