You can lead the proverbial horse to water – but how on earth do you make it drink? 

Especially when the legal profession just isn’t thirsty for improvements to the consumer experience. Implementing the MHCLG’s and the CMA’s plans for more transparent pricing, performance data, standard metrics, kite marks and quality standards hasn’t in my view, gone well. 

 

The evidence to date is that mandation on price transparency has encouraged either bare minimum compliance (with little improvement of the consumer experience) or given the lack of effective enforcement, in many cases no action whatsoever. 

 

Efforts to introduce new comparable metrics haven’t yet broken through to the market (including my own) so there aren’t any new operational standards to act as a benchmark for consumers and at the same time kite marks and quality standards haven’t shed their historical baggage.