This is a conference* about ‘trust in the market’ and building confidence within the sphere of legal services regulation.  I shall therefore open with the observation (or reminder) that regulation is a public intervention in otherwise private transactions and free markets.  It must therefore stem from a political judgement that we should not have complete trust and confidence, and must instead rely on the intervention in the market. issue of how confidence in regulation develops and is then sustained is a fascinating one.  It begs preliminary questions of what we mean by ‘confidence’, and from whose standpoint we are assessing it.

Continue reading →