Message
from the
Chief
Having a choice
Sensible people come
straight to Mayo Wynne
Baxter when they want
legal advice but what are
the options for those who,
for some strange reason,
have not heard of us? What
people should be able to
do and what they may want
to do to access advice are
issues that are of concern
to all forward-thinking law
firms, consumer groups,
the Government – and
also regulators such as
the Solicitors Regulatory
Authority (SRA).
Not everyone employs a chartered
accountant to do their tax return. Some
people will do it themselves, appoint a
bookkeeper, or look for online solutions,
while others will ignore the issue and hope
that they are not contacted by HMRC.
What makes a person choose to appoint
an accountant will be determined by the
complexity of their tax affairs, their own
level of knowledge and their budget.
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Similarly, not everyone employs a
solicitor to advise them on the law. Like
accountants, solicitors are perceived as
expensive, perhaps somewhat daunting
to approach and likely to deal only with
more complex issues.
It used to be the case that some of these
concerns, particularly around cost, could
be alleviated by recourse to legal aid.
Ordinary people could justifiably feel
that they could get access to justice by
appointing a solicitor who was prepared to
work for the fees that were allowed under
the Legal Aid scheme. However, Legal
Aid has all but disappeared for the vast
majority of legal work, so the affordability
of receiving legal advice, when needed,
has become a real issue for all of us.
In this context, it is not surprising that
there has been increased focus on other
ways of obtaining legal advice. In an
age where an immeasurable amount
of information is available online for the
price of a broadband subscription, it is
understandably tempting for people to
`self-diagnose` by researching issues via
Google, perhaps downloading documents
and information, then attempting to take
issues forward themselves.
There is also a large, and possibly
growing (the data is not clear) body
of legal advice providers that are not
solicitors. As at August 2014, there were
10,593 firms of solicitors, employing
130,846 practising solicitors, in England
and Wales. The Office for National
Statistics in 2012 published data
suggesting there were 6,000 non-solicitor
legal service providers. Research by
the Legal Services Board (LSB) in 2010
estimated the number of individuals
providing unreserved (I will explain this
term below) legal activities to be more
than 130,000 - roughly equivalent to the
number of practising solicitors.
From a consumer perspective, this
looks like good news initially. If you work
on the assumption that solicitors are
expensive and tend to deal with more
complex or higher value matters, you
might well feel there is a place for less
qualified, and therefore less costly, legal
service providers able to meet a need
for legal advice that cannot be satisfied
by solicitors alone. Some of the services
provided by such bodies will be free,
in all probability. For example, benefits
advice given by volunteers in a Citizens
Advice Bureau, or housing advice given
by a charity such as Shelter.
But what about the advice given on
inheritance and tax issues by an
unqualified Will-writer, or the advice
about employment rights given by an
unqualified claims manager?
Surprisingly, legal advice across a
wide variety of topics can be given,
quite legitimately, by someone who is