Changes To The Work Of Solicitors And Barristers In The UK

Due to the recent changes to the work of solicitors and barristers, made in the previous years it seems that they had lost and gained a few monopo-lies. This lead people to believe that both legal professions are being fused together.

Before 1985 solicitors had a monopoly on conveyancing, this means that solicitors were responsible to make legal documents regarding, buying houses, buildings and land. However, the monopoly was changed by the administration Justice Act 1985. The Act gave permission to other people to become legal conveyancers other than solicitors. The change resulted in huge competition in the same field, which made earning money for a solici-tor very hard. In other words, solicitors had lost their work, and to make sure they

In September 2004 the Bar granted direct access to barristers. This helped the clients with their financial problem, because it cuts the expens-es of a solicitor. However, the problem with the Direct Access was that the cab- rank rule would not be applicable. The rule made sure that the barris-ter could not turn down a case or chose a case with high profile. If this rule was not applicable the client would have to struggle to find a barrister or would have to pay more.

Many people believe that fusing the two professions together would make it easier but it is not always that simple, it has both advantages and disad-vantages. The biggest advantage of fusion would be the expenses, normally a client would have to pay for both a solicitor and a barrister for a case, after the right of Direct Access to barristers, it has made it easier for clients to man-age with the expenses of affording a barrister. Due to the direct access it al-lows the information to flow without any misunderstanding, because there is only one body dealing with the case. This also helps prevent dupli-cation and allows the barrister to have a one-to one conversation with the client. The one-to- one conversation allows the barrister to understand the emotion and feeling of his client, which would help create realistic argu-ments and a stronger

By having just “lawyer” it would make it easier to see and investigate which profession the student wants to take. And if the student is interested in advocacy or dealing with conveyancing he/ she has the choice to special-ise.

Some believe that fusing the two would reduce the quality of skills, it is clear that both pressions require different skills to make sure that the rep-resentation is good. It also will make having both skill set hard, because some a good at advocacy and dealing with arguments, while other may be good with documents and analysing information.

It is nearly impossible for one body to do both, this would make preparing a case very hard and if the lawyer does not have the skills to prepare and document the case it would also cause misunderstandings. Which would all result in a weak case. It would also put a lot of pressure on the lawyer to be able to perform well and increase competition.

The most important argument is that if the two would be merged together who would be responsible for the regulation of the profession. If the both fuse together the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and the Bar Standard Board would have to fuse their rules and set up new ones, which is always a log