Law firms should have to publish their fees for family and employment work beyond unfair dismissal claims, Legal Services Consumer Panel (LSCP) has said.

The LSCP also said there was “an unacceptable lack of transparency” in plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to cut law firm contributions to the Compensation Fund and asked to see evidence justifying the decision.

The SRA’s existing rules require law firms to publish costs information on their websites for certain categories of consumer-related work, including conveyancing, probate, immigration and employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal.

Responding to the regulator’s consultation on its draft business plan and budget for 2023/4, LSCP chair Sarah Chambers said it was “of the strong opinion” that transparency measures “should now be extended to other pressing and important areas of law” where consumers were struggling, such as family and employment law.

The panel was “disappointed” by the slow progress made by the SRA in developing “quality indicators” which allow consumers to shop around, and “more effort” should be devoted to it – although the SRA published major research into this two days before her letter.

She said the panel would be writing to the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) at the end of this year, “noting the slow progress on quality indicators seven years after the CMA’s first report and three years since the CMA’s last assessment”.

Referring to a paper published by the panel...

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