Lord Hunt calls on City firms to get involved with regulation

The Tory peer responsible for the Law Society ­regulatory ;review ;is ­appealing to City lawyers to engage in the study after they snubbed his initial call for evidence.

The Law Society appointed Lord David Hunt, Shadow Minister for Business, Enterprise and Regulation, to lead the review in October 2008. The review has received only a limited number of responses from the City, despite ­several calls for evidence being issued.

Hunt ;warned ;the ­profession that it could be landed with an unfavourable regulatory regime if it failed to engage with the study.

“When ;the ;current ­economic ;turmoil ;has passed ;the ;regulatory regime will come back into sharp focus for all of us, but by then it may be too late for us to wield significant influence over the substance of regulation, possibly for many years,” said Hunt.

Hunt has discussed the review with a number of professional bodies, including the Legal Services Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Services Commission.

“What I’d now like to encourage, however, is for individual firms and ­solicitors to tell me how they believe they should be ­regulated in future,” he said.