Legal costs - Urgent need for reform in legal service
In fact, the Authority published a preliminary report last year which said the profession was “permeated with serious and disproportionate restrictions on competition.”
It said exactly the same in the report published yesterday, which begs the question why the necessity to repeat itself, especially when it is virtually powerless to implement any of the changes it proposes.
Had it the power to apply those changes, then the consumer would in all probability save money in many of the 29 recommendations it made.
But it does not, and in the words of Competition Authority chairman Bill Prasifka it was advocating the recommendations and that “it will be up to the Government to bring in any changes.”
But the Government, through Justice Minister Michael McDowell, is already reportedly examining ways to make accessibility to those services less expensive for people.
He is looking at the findings of an Implementation Advisory Group which was set up last year and whose recommendations could be introduced in the early part of next year.
Of course, entry into the legal profession also badly needs to be changed, as the Competition Authority advocates, and it should not be self-regulatory.
Consumers should be informed of their rights, advertising be relaxed and the profession should be answerable to an independent body.
What this report serves to do is to re-open discussion on a profession whose services are vital and essential in so many aspects of life, but which remains a largely unknown, but expensive, quantity to many people.
The Law Society, in a response, said the Competition Authority had been overtaken by events and was now playing “catch up.”
It is long gone beyond the stage where the legal profession itself began to catch up with what the public expect, and demand, of it.
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