In January 2016 the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) began a market study on the supply of Legal Services in England and Wales, to see whether the market is working sufficiently well in the interests of consumers. The CMA is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority.
In its statement of scope, the CMA observed:
- perceptions that demand in legal services is ‘unmet’
- concerns about the affordability of legal services
- concerns about service standards by both regulated and unregulated providers
- concerns about the complexity of the regulatory framework
- ‘markedly different’ views on how the current regulatory framework could be further reformed
- relatively low levels of consumer empowerment in the sector
- new developments in how legal services are provided to consumers
- concerns about how effective the redress mechanisms for legal services are and whether there are gaps in the current redress framework
For the timetable, statement of scope, responses and report read the legal services market study page on the gov.uk website
