Schedule 1 – Law Society of Scotland Part 2 – Regulation of legal businesses
245.This Part of schedule 1 makes a wide range of changes to recalibrate the 1980 Act towards regulating legal businesses. As noted above, a legal business is any business entity that provides legal services to the public and includes sole traders, partnerships and the permitted forms of incorporated practice that are already regulated under the 1980 Act.
246.The changes made to schedule 1 generally remove references to firms and incorporated practices and replace them with the broader concept of the authorised legal business. In other places however, the move shifts the current regulatory provision away from the individual solicitor or practitioner onto the business. This distinction may be less obvious in the case of the sole trader but there is still a business which is distinct from the individual who runs it, and this business will require separate authorisation.