Bar Standards Board approved to regulate entitites

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has been approved to regulate entities—businesses authorised to provide reserved legal activities—for the first time.

It will begin accepting applications from entities that focus on advocacy, litigation and specialist legal advice on 5 January 2015 and will authorise applications from April. This means barristers and other advocacy-focused lawyers can pool resources without having to change regulators. The BSB expects to regulate between 900-1400 single person entities in the first three years of operation.

Baroness Deech, BSB chair, said there was “clear interest on the part of the Bar in setting up or becoming part of an entity”.

Meanwhile, new SRA chief executive Paul Philip said last week that the regulator wants to improve its support for smaller firms and has launched a discussion paper.