Monisha Shah, Chair of the Legal Services Board, reflects on how regulation can protect consumers, support innovation and maintain public confidence as legal services evolve. Opening the International Conference of Legal Regulators in London, she highlights the importance of anticipating emerging risks and learning from regulatory approaches around the world.
Opening remarks at the International Conference of Legal Regulators, London, 28 September 2026
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Good morning everyone, and welcome.
It is a great pleasure to open this year’s International Conference of Legal Regulators and to welcome colleagues from across the legal regulatory community and the wider legal services sector. Many of you have travelled significant distances to be here, and it is wonderful to see representatives from so many jurisdictions gathered together in one place.
Before I go any further, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Alison and her team for organising this conference and bringing together such a diverse international group of regulators and legal sector leaders. Events like this do not happen without a huge amount of hard work behind the scenes, and we are all grateful for their efforts.
Looking around the room, it is striking just how much experience, expertise and insight is represented. We come from different legal systems, and different regulatory frameworks. Yet we share a common purpose: protecting the public while supporting a legal sector that can innovate, compete and thrive.
That shared purpose is what makes gatherings like this so valuable.
As many of you will know, I am relatively new to the role of Chair of the Legal Services Board, having taken up the position earlier this year. So this conference comes at an ideal time for me, both professionally and personally.
Throughout my career I have had the privilege of working across a number of sectors undergoing significant change. Those experiences have reinforced a lesson that I suspect many people in this room will recognise – good regulation matters.
It matters because people place trust in regulated institutions and services.
It matters because effective regulation gives consumers and the public confidence that their interests are being protected.
And at its best, regulation provides a framework within which innovation can flourish, risks can be managed and markets can evolve.
Those are some of the reasons I was drawn to legal services regulation. But there was something else as well: the unique role that legal services play in society.
The legal sector is not simply another professional market. It helps uphold the rule of law, enables individuals and businesses to enforce their rights, supports economic activity and investment, and provides an essential foundation for the functioning of society.
That makes the work of legal regulators especially important.
Our task is not simply to oversee compliance with existing rules. It is to ensure that regulatory systems remain effective, proportionate and responsive to changing circumstances. It is to ask whether regulation is delivering for consumers and the public. And it is to help create the conditions in which legal services can continue to evolve and improve.
At the Legal Services Board, those questions are at the heart of our thinking as we look towards the future.
One of the themes that has emerged strongly during my first months as Chair is the extraordinary pace of change affecting the legal sector.
Technology is transforming not only how legal services are delivered, but also how consumers find, compare and access legal support. Digital platforms are expanding access to information, new tools are increasing efficiency, and technological innovation is creating opportunities to provide services in different ways and at different price points.
Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most obvious example. AI has the potential to improve productivity, reduce costs and expand access to legal services. At the same time, it raises important questions about quality, accountability, transparency and consumer protection.
Regulators around the world are grappling with similar questions: how do we support innovation and realise the benefits of new technologies while maintaining public confidence and appropriate safeguards?
Alongside technological change, consumer expectations continue to evolve. People increasingly expect services that are accessible, efficient, and designed around their needs. Consumers are accustomed to digital services in many other aspects of their lives and naturally expect legal services to keep pace.
We are also seeing new providers and business models entering legal markets and this has prompted important conversations about competition, professional standards and the future shape of the sector.
At the same time, longstanding challenges remain. Across many jurisdictions there continue to be important conversations about access to justice, professional standards, public confidence and how regulatory frameworks can keep pace with changing markets.
For regulators, this creates a difficult balancing act.
We must continue to protect consumers and uphold standards.
We must continue to maintain confidence in the professions we regulate.
But we must also avoid creating unnecessary barriers to innovation and improvement.
One of the enduring principles of good regulation is proportionality. Regulatory intervention should reflect the nature and scale of the risks involved. We should be prepared to act decisively where consumers or the public interest are at risk, but equally, we should avoid imposing burdens that do little to improve outcomes.
Finding that balance is one of the defining challenges of modern regulation. Different jurisdictions approach that balance in different ways, which is one of the reasons international dialogue is so valuable.
At the LSB, our response is increasingly focused on ensuring that regulation is risk-based, evidence-led and forward-looking. We are placing greater emphasis on understanding emerging risks and opportunities, drawing on a wider range of intelligence and data, and directing attention towards the areas where it can make the greatest difference. Those principles are at the core of our developing oversight approach.
The emphasis on looking ahead is particularly important because regulatory systems cannot afford to be purely reactive.
Historically, many regulatory reforms have followed crises, failures or significant public concerns. There will always be a need for regulators to respond decisively when problems arise.
But increasingly, success depends on the ability to identify emerging risks and opportunities before they become systemic challenges.
That means investing in horizon scanning and market intelligence. It means being willing to ask difficult questions about whether existing frameworks remain fit for purpose. And it means building genuine flexibility into regulatory systems, so that we can adapt as circumstances change.
This forward-looking mindset also requires humility. None of us can predict with certainty how technology, markets or consumer behaviour will evolve over the coming years. What we can do is build regulatory systems that are resilient, adaptive and open to learning.
And that, in many ways, brings me to why gatherings like this conference matter so much.
No single regulator, however well resourced or well informed, has a monopoly on good ideas. The challenges we face, whether in relation to technology, access to justice, or maintaining public confidence, are rarely unique to one jurisdiction. Other regulators have often already grappled with similar issues, tested different approaches, and learned valuable lessons, sometimes through hard experience.
As an oversight regulator, the Legal Services Board places significant importance on collaboration and convening. Looking across an entire regulatory system provides a unique perspective on common challenges, emerging risks and opportunities for improvement. Bringing different voices together can help create a richer understanding of the issues we face and often leads to better solutions than any one organisation could develop in isolation.
That principle applies equally at an international level.
There is enormous value in creating opportunities to share experiences, compare approaches and learn from one another. The more we can learn from one another’s experiences, the better equipped we will be to respond effectively.
And perhaps most importantly, the conference provides an opportunity to build and strengthen the relationships that enable continued collaboration long after the conference itself has concluded.
Over the course of the conference we will hear insights from regulators, practitioners, academics and policy experts reflecting a wide range of perspectives. We will explore emerging challenges, consider the implications of technological and market change, and discuss how regulatory systems can continue to evolve in the public interest. Those discussions could hardly be more timely.
I have no doubt that we will leave with new ideas, new perspectives and a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities ahead.
So let me conclude where I began. Thank you to Alison and the team for organising this event. Thank you to our speakers, panellists and contributors. And thank you to all of you for participating.
I wish you a stimulating, productive and enjoyable conference, and I very much look forward to the discussions ahead.