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12 May 2023 / Iain Miller , Charlotte Judd
Issue: 8024 / Categories: Features , Regulatory , Legal services , Profession
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Navigating litigation: what’s reserved?

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The High Court has provided welcome guidance on what exactly constitutes the conduct of litigation: Iain Miller & Charlotte Judd examine this perilously grey area of the law
  • Baxter v Doble acts as a reminder to practitioners to ensure they are on the right side of the line when it comes to the reserved legal activity of conducting litigation and being authorised to act as required by the Legal Services Act 2007.
  • The High Court has reiterated the fact-sensitive nature of assessing where a practitioner falls in respect of that line.

In March this year, the Legal Services Board concluded there was no current case for reform in respect of reserved legal activities (RLAs) as stipulated by the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007). RLAs comprise the work that can only be done by those who are regulated by an approved legal regulator. The current framework is therefore here to stay, for now.

Difficulties have arisen in practice, however, in the interpretation of the RLAs and

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Secondments, disciplinary procedures and appeal chaos all feature in a quartet of recent rulings. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, examines how established principles are being tested in modern disputes
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A High Court ruling involving the Longleat estate has exposed the fault line between modern family building and historic trust drafting. Writing in NLJ this week, Charlotte Coyle, director and family law expert at Freeths, examines Cator v Thynn [2026] EWHC 209 (Ch), where trustees sought approval to modernise trusts that retain pre-1970 definitions of ‘child’, ‘grandchild’ and ‘issue’
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