Bar Co chair calls for LSB to be disbanded

updated on 16 November 2012

In his speech to the annual Bar Council conference on 10 November, Bar Council Chair Michael Todd QC lashed out at the over-arching regulatory body, the Legal Services Board (LSB), calling for it to be "disbanded" and saying that he had support from both the attorney general and the justice secretary.

As reported in The Lawyer, Todd stated that the LSB had gone "beyond its brief" and was part of a wider problem of over-regulation. He also touched on the high fees that barristers must pay to the LSB: "The LSB doesn't mind what it spends. They are not using their own money."

Attorney General Dominic Grieve said: "The LSB is not exactly flavour of the month with any of the professions. I think there are justifiable concerns that it may at times tend towards micro-management. I do share the Bar's concern with that."

In a beautiful example of simple understatement, a spokesperson for the LSB is said to have responded to Todd's comments with the following: "We have noted with interest."