Duaa, Kaitlin and Sam were law student scholars, participating in the WS Society Summer Scholars programme during July 2025. This article summarises their research and presentation.
Introduction
The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025 (the Act) is the latest piece of legislation adding to the regulation of the legal profession in Scotland. The Act received Royal Assent on 27 June 2025 after 15 years of debate and consideration.
In this feature, the following aspects of the Act are considered:
Regulators;
Implemented and abandoned recommendations made by the Roberton Review; and
Alternative Business Structures.
Who are the regulators in Scotland?
The 2025 Act allows for the following regulators in Scotland:
The Law Society of Scotland,
The Faculty of Advocates,
an approved regulator of licenced providers,
an accredited regulator or
a body which has had an application under section 25 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 granted under section 26 of that Act.
Implementing the Roberton Review
The Report of the Independent Review of Legal Services in Scotland, also known as the Roberton Review (the Review), was led by Esther Roberton and published in 2018. The Review contained several recommendations to improve regulation within the profession. The Act implements certain recommendations but abandoned others.
Section 9 of the Act requires at least 50% of the regulatory committee to made up of lay members. This was also recommended by the Review with the aim of improving public and consumer confidence with the regulation of the legal profession.
The Review recommended a requirement to produce annual reports which was implemented under sections 12 and 15 respectively for both categories of regulators. With both the Law Society of Scotland and Faculty of Advocates already publishing annual reports, this is unlikely to result in a significant change but enshrines the requirement within statute. The requirement promotes transparency and allows the general public to have an insight into the regulation of the profession.
As recommended by the Review, the Act has created an offence to use or take the title of lawyer and does so in the connection with providing legal services to the public for a fee, gain or reward. Creating this offence aims to protect consumers who may be unaware of the differences between the terms “solicitor” and “lawyer” from being deceived.
The Act takes this a step further and created offences for pretending to be a regulated legal services provider or a member of Faculty. By including regulated legal services providers and members of Faculty as protected terms, the Act modernises the law by widening the scope of offences and encompassing the broad range of legal services offered by legal professionals.
The Review’s most infamous recommendation was the creation of a single regulator for all legal service providers within Scotland. This was criticised by several different groups within the profession. The Act did not take this recommendation forward and instead took the approach of modernising the existing regulators.
The Review’s single regulator would have been accountable to the Scottish Ministers. This was also widely disliked as many felt it would politicise the regulation of legal services and threaten the independence of the legal profession. The Act makes no changes to the accountability of regulators and the Lord President retains their ultimate responsibility for regulating the profession.
The Review recommended that members of the regulatory board be appointed by an independent public appointments process with an independent assessor. The chair of the board would be appointed in similar manner. Parliament instead chose to allow the regulatory committee to appoint members itself and if this is not possible the regulators can. The convener of the committee is appointed by the committee itself. It is not entirely clear why this recommendation was not included within the Act.
Alternative Business Structures
We tend to think of the traditional Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) model when considering the constitution of the modern law firm, where all the partners are qualified solicitors or solicitor-advocates. The business entity itself is a separate legal person from the partners who comprise it. This model has tended to dominate the practice of law not just in Scotland but across the world.
Alternative business structures (ABS) disrupt traditional thinking about the LLP model by envisioning ownership of a law firm by non-lawyers. The Law Society of England & Wales defines ABS as:
“... a firm that is licensed to enable it to carry on one or more of the specific reserved legal activities that are regulated… and whose owners and/or managers are non-lawyers.”
There are over 12,000 solicitors in Scotland. Without ABS this represents the eligible pool of people who are able to own or manage a law firm as a partner. This has been described as a ‘monopoly’ which restricts investment.
It is argued that ABS widens the eligible pool enormously, enabling legal services providers to attract investment particularly from areas like accountancy. There’s an argument that bringing multiple services under one roof improves affordability and accessibility for consumers and corporate clients in the sense of providing a ‘one-stop-shop’.
However, with any investment there should be some pause for consideration. The possibility for non-lawyer ownership is something that will invariably alter the culture of the modern law firm. It is up to individual firms as to whether they can accommodate this, but it would be naïve to assume that it would have no impact.
When ABS was mooted in the 2000s, there was a concern that entities other than law firms would enter the legal market providing low-quality legal advice to the detriment of smaller and medium sized law firms which were at risk of being put out of business.
ABS has been dubbed as ‘Tesco Law’ in the sense that supermarkets would begin offering legal advice to their customers under the ABS model. However, this concern has not really materialised in practice and certainly not to the extent feared by practitioners. The only manifestation was when the Co-op began providing legal advice under Co-operative Legal. The experience has been somewhat mixed, winning awards for their user-friendly ethos despite consistently been making losses.
Despite concerns of many in the legal profession that ABS will lead to a reduction in the oversight of lawyers in the delivery of legal services, the Scottish Government is pressing ahead with its introduction in Scotland. The Government views the introduction of ABS as widening consumer choice and widening the access to justice. Others view the introduction as a threat to the solicitor service as we know it.
Conclusion
The Act has heralded significant modernisation of legal services regulation in Scotland. It has introduced new processes intended to streamline regulation, enhance transparency and public faith in regulatory processes. The Act, however, has not introduced an entirely new regulatory regime. Instead, it has updated many older pieces of legislation resulting in a complex web of legislation which now need to be followed by regulators and practitioners alike.
Some changes are still to come. The introduction of ABS will take more time and most likely lead to further debate. The move to 0% ownership being by legal professionals, down from 51%, has split opinion on its merits. The Law Society has not yet introduced a timeline for the introduction of ABS in Scotland.
Many are pleased to see the independence of legal regulation retained and separate from oversight of the Scottish Ministers. One of the Review’s most significant and controversial recommendations was abandoned and with it legal regulation remains central to the work of the work of the Law Society of Scotland and Faculty of Advocates.