Quality assurance

The specialised nature of legal services can make it difficult for consumers to judge the quality of a lawyer they are considering using, or the quality of advice they have received. A range of quality assurance schemes and protected titles exist to provide some level of consumer confidence in the competence of their legal adviser.

In 2010, the Legal Services Board sought the Consumer Panel's advice on consumer perspectives on quality. The Panel's report was completed in November 2010 and can be found below, along with the independent consumer research report.

In May 2011, the Board published its response to the Panel's report and requested further advice on voluntary quality schemes. As part of this second project the Panel has identified 10 characteristics that quality schemes must have to give consumers confidence that they are a robust and reliable indicator of a good quality legal services provider, and assessed a selection of existing schemes against them. The Panel’s second report was provided to the LSB in November 2011 and can be found below, as well as the full assessments of selected voluntary quality schemes.