Prosecutions for carrying out reserved legal activities

The request was partially successful.

Dear Legal Services Board,

1 Please could you tell me how many complaints or referrals you have received from members of the public, the judiciary or legal profession about the carrying out of reserved legal activities without proper authorisation under the Legal Services Act 2007 (conduct of litigation or exercise of rights of audience) and provide statistics for what action (if any) was taken by the LSB.

2 Please could you tell me how many investigations have been carried out by the Legal Services Board in each calendar year from 2010 to date in connection with the carrying out of reserved legal activities without proper authorisation under the Legal Services Act 2007 (conduct of litigation or exercise of rights of audience).

3 Of those investigations please can you tell me :
a) how many prosecutions have been pursued
b) how many convictions secured
c) how many investigations, prosecutions and convictions related to Mckenzie friends / lay representatives or advisers or persons not holding themselves out as lawyers or not legally qualified (broken down into such categories as you record)
d) how many such matters are pending at investigation or prosecution stage.

4 Please provide any policy or strategy you operate in relation to matters above.

Yours faithfully,

Lucy Reed

Adewale Kadiri, Legal Services Board

Dear Ms Reed

 

I write to acknowledge receipt of your email of 29 February 2016, in which
you requested information about complaints received by the LSB in relation
to the carrying out of reserved legal activities.

 

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act, and we will provide you with a substantive
response within 20 working days, i.e. by no later than 28 March 2016. This
response will be sent to the email address that you have provided.

 

The reference number for your request is 20160229/01 which you should
quote in all correspondence with us.

 

In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any
queries.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Adewale Kadiri | Corporate Governance Manager | Legal Services Board
One Kemble Street, London, WC2B 4AN

T 020 7271 0070

E [email address]

 

______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
______________________________________________________________________

Adewale Kadiri, Legal Services Board

Dear Ms Reed

 

I write in response to your email of 29 February in which you requested
information about the number of complaints or referrals that the LSB has
received with regard to the carrying on of reserved legal activities,
without proper authorisation, under the Legal Services Act 2007 (the Act),
and any action that the LSB has taken in response to such allegations.

 

I can confirm that the LSB holds some of the information that you have
requested. Starting at the year 2011, from which our records begin, the
number of complaints and referrals received are as follows:

 

                2011: 1

                2012: 2

                2013:1

                2014: 3

                2015: 1

                2016: 1

 

In response to your subsequent questions as to what action the LSB has
taken, investigations carried out or prosecutions launched as a result of
these complaints or referrals, I should explain that the Act did not give
the LSB any powers to investigate, or to prosecute any person or body
alleged to have committed any of the offences set out in sections 14 to 17
of the Act. Our approach, in response to the complaints or referrals that
we have received has been to advise those bringing such matters to our
attention to refer their concerns to the relevant police service, who have
the power to investigate all criminal matters, and to decide, in
conjunction with local prosecutors, whether a prosecution has a reasonable
prospect of success and is in the public interest. The LSB does not hold
figures as to how many such allegations have been prosecuted or led to
criminal convictions.

 

If you are dissatisfied with our response to your request for information,
you have the right to ask for an internal review or to submit a complaint
(see LSB’s Freedom of information – Complaints procedure:
[1]http://www.legalservicesboard.org.uk/can...

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Adewale Kadiri | Corporate Governance Manager | Legal Services Board
One Kemble Street, London, WC2B 4AN

T 020 7271 0070

E [email address]

 

______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
______________________________________________________________________

References

Visible links
1. http://www.legalservicesboard.org.uk/can...