Legal Services Board

The Legal Services Board (LSB) is the oversight regulator of legal services in England and Wales. We are independent from both the legal profession and government. The LSB operates within a statutory framework set through Parliament – the Legal Services Act 2007 (‘the Act’) – which describes our functions and gives us our powers. The Act sets out eight regulatory objectives that we share with the organisations we oversee. The regulation of legal professionals is carried out by 15 approved regulators and regulatory bodies and the LSB holds these bodies to account in meeting their obligations under the Act. We also oversee the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) – the board of the Legal Ombudsman – and have certain functions in relation to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Our core functions include overseeing the regulators’ performance, setting the annual fees that practitioners pay them and approving changes to their rules and other arrangements. We ensure that regulation of legal services is carried out independently of the organisations that represent providers. We also collect evidence on legal needs and the operation of the market. In all our work, we consider how best to promote the regulatory objectives.