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The move by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to embrace entity-based and outcomes-focused regulation is hard to understand, major new research commissioned by the Legal Services Board and Law Society has claimed.

The recent debate on the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) plans to regulate advocacy-focused business structures – entities – pitted Bar Council old-timers against BSB modernists, and it was the latter who came out on top. The motion was bland enough but it soon became clear that what its proposers actually meant by this was “entities will open the door to solicitors flooding (and eventually taking over) the Bar’s institutions and that by inviting solicitor-advocates into its regulatory ‘tent’, the BSB will weaken the distinctiveness of the barristers’ offering”.

Barristers need to grasp the opportunities offered by direct access for the public, which will also help them bid for legal aid contracts, the chairman of the Bar Council has urged. Peter Lodder QC said the “critical importance” of public access is underlined by the proposed legal aid cuts.