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Axiom Ince, SLAPPs, Dixit Shah…who would be a regulator?

08 December 2023 / John Gould
Issue: 8052 / Categories: Opinion , Regulatory , Profession
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Regulating the legal services industry is not an easy job, as John Gould explains

One of the key challenges faced by legal regulators is how to apply limited resources to achieve the best outcomes in the public interest. Recently two controversies have brought the question of how regulatory risks are prioritised into sharp focus.

Any risk management professional will tell you that the threat posed by a risk is a combination of how likely it is to occur and the impact of the consequences. A nuclear meltdown is less likely to occur than a late running train, but the impact is much greater. Setting priorities must take both into account.

Inevitably different regulatory stakeholders have different priorities but, conventionally, the key interests are those of the regulated profession and the consumers of their services. Each group’s collective interests should largely overlap because both have an interest in ensuring that regulation is cost-effective and maintains high levels of confidence in the regulated profession. But there are other

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NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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