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| Long title | An Act to make provision with respect to the procedure in, and allocation of business between, the High Court and other courts; to make provision with respect to legal services; to establish a body to be known as the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct and a body to be known as the Authorised Conveyancing Practitioners Board; to provide for the appointment of a legal services ombudsman; to make provision for the establishment of a conveyancing ombudsman scheme; to provide for the establishment of conveyancing appeal tribunals; to amend the law relating to judicial and related pensions and judicial and other appointments; to make provision with respect to certain officers of the Supreme Court; to amend the Solicitors Act 1974; to amend the Arbitration Act 1950; to amend the law relating to the limitation of actions; to make provision with respect to certain loans in respect of residential property; to amend the Children Act 1989 and make further provision in connection with that Act; and for connected purposes. |
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| Citation | 1990 c. 41 |
| Introduced by | The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne |
| Territorial extent | Mostly England and Wales, some elements throughout the United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 1 November 1990 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repeals/revokes | |
| Amended by | Access to Justice Act 1999 |
| Relates to | Administration of Justice Act 1985 |
Status: Amended | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (c. 41) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the legal profession and courts of England and Wales. The Act was the culmination of a series of reports and reforms that started with the Benson Commission in the 1970s, and significantly changed the way that the legal profession and court system worked.
The changes introduced in the Act covered a variety of areas. Important changes were made to the judiciary, particularly in terms of appointments, judicial pensions and the introduction of district judges, the arbitration process of Alternative Dispute Resolution and the procedure in the courts, particularly in terms of the distribution of civil business between the High Court and the county courts.
The most significant changes were made in the way the legal profession was organised and regulated. The Act broke the monopoly solicitors held on conveyancing work, creating an Authorised Conveyancing Practitioners Board which could certify "any individual, corporation or employee of a corporation" as an authorised conveyancer subject to certain requirements. The Act also broke the monopoly the Bar held on advocacy and litigation in the higher courts by granting solicitors rights of audience in the Crown Court, High Court, Court of Appeal, Court of Session, Privy Council, and House of Lords if they qualify as solicitor advocates.
The Act also made many minor changes to areas as varied as family law, criminal prosecutions and the distribution of costs in civil cases. The Act has been called "[one of] the great reforming statutes of the twentieth century" and "one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting the delivery of legal services since 1949".[1]
- ^ White (1991) p. 1