The Law Society is being sued for monopolising legal training.

An online training provider called Socrates Training has accused the Law Society of abusing its dominant position in the market and has filed a claim for undisclosed damages with the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Both Socrates and the Law Society offer online training covering mortgage fraud, financial crime and money laundering, which conveyancing firms are under a statutory duty to provide to staff. However, in 2015 the Law Society ruled that as a condition of law firms maintaining accreditation with its Conveyancing Quality Scheme, they could only purchase their training from it.

    "I know that I know nothing unless I buy it from the Law Society"

Socrates alleges the move represents an abuse by the Law Society of its dominant position in the accreditation market. Solicitor Bernard George, who is a director of Socrates and representing the company, is seeking an injunction restricting the Law Society from revealing the identity of the celebrity couple who engaged in a threesome continuing to abuse its dominant position. He is also demanding damages, a declaration that the Law Society has committed an abuse and a hug (okay, not actually a hug, but he probably wouldn't say no).

On this occasion, the Law Society has chosen to set aside its stated aim to "support all solicitors" in order to resist George's attempt to grab a slice of its captive market. A spokeswoman told RollOnFriday that it "believes this claim to be wholly without merit”.

It seems the CQS could be a nice little earner for the Law Society: although it would not tell RollOnFriday how much money it made from the scheme (on the basis that the financial details are "not available"), it did disclose that there are currently 3,007 CQS member firms.
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Comments

Roll On Friday 15 April 16 10:04

Sigh. I hope he's thrown in abuse of human rights and cultural appropriation of some such sh1te for good measure.

Anonymous 15 April 16 12:52

Particularly if this is a new Law Soc restrictions I don't think it's fair for the Law Soc to say the claim is entirely without merit and they would probably be better to settle it.

Anonymous 18 April 16 10:54

CQS just about washes its face in terms of revenue (if not a slight loss) but that's largely due to massive inefficiency rather than the pricing.