Meaning of key expressions
Section 5 – Meaning of “legal services” and “legal services provider”
29.This section defines, for the purposes of the Act, what is meant by the expressions “legal services” and “legal services providers”.
30.The definition of legal services is intended to be broad and describes a range of legal activities, many of which are capable of being provided by people or bodies who are not qualified as solicitors or advocates (section 32 of the 1980 Act limits the drawing or preparation of certain documents to solicitors and other legal professionals). The definition is the same as that used in the 2010 Act.
31.For the purposes of the Act, a legal services provider is defined as being a person or body that provides legal services (whether or not directly to the public and whether or not those services are regulated). This therefore includes solicitors and advocates as well as in-house lawyers, paralegals, conveyancing practitioners etc. It also includes bodies providing legal services such as traditional legal partnerships, other forms of legal business and licensed legal services providers.
32.People who provide legal services but are not regulated are also covered by this definition. This therefore extends the scope of legal regulation beyond the traditional practitioners. This is particularly relevant in the context of services complaints, but it is also important for the changes made in respect of new regulators of legal services where it provides a route for people other than solicitors and advocates to provide regulated legal services.
Section 6 – Meaning of regulatory functions
33.This section defines, for the purposes of the Act, what is meant by a reference to the regulatory functions of a regulatory authority. This definition is used in several places in the Act and is of particular importance in situations where an organisation, such as the Law Society, has both regulatory and representative functions. In those circumstances, the Act requires the organisation to discharge its regulatory functions independently of its representative ones and put in place appropriate structures to support that.
