The Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales (SRA) has commissioned Economic Insight to undertake both a consumer survey with house buyers and an online trial on price transparency in conveyancing. The aim of this project is to provide consumer research to address one of the issues identified by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in its legal services market study – that “the legal services sector is not working well” because there is “very little transparency about price, service and quality.” The CMA called on regulators, including the SRA, to set new minimum standards for price transparency. To help work out what the appropriate minimum standards should be, the CMA recommended consumer testing should be undertaken to identify how consumers make decisions in the legal services market. Our online trial will be an important piece of evidence to inform any future minimum standards.
