Costs Lawyer Standards Board

What Costs Lawyer Standards Board does

The Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB) is the statutory regulator for Costs Lawyers in England and Wales, operating under the Legal Services Act 2007 with oversight from the Legal Services Board. Established in 2011 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL), CLSB exercises delegated regulatory authority over the Costs Lawyer profession while maintaining complete operational independence from ACL as required by the Legal Services Board's Internal Governance Rules. The organisation's core function is to protect consumers and the wider public interest by setting, maintaining, and enforcing professional standards for approximately 723 regulated Costs Lawyers (as of 1 April 2025), up from 710 the prior year.

CLSB's core products are regulatory services rather than technology products. These include the public Register of Costs Lawyers (a searchable online directory of regulated practitioners), the Costs Lawyer Handbook (containing the Code of Conduct, Practising Rules, and Disciplinary Rules and Procedures), the Ethics Hub (interactive ethical guidance with scenarios covering undertakings, confidentiality, conflicts, and integrity), the Online Practising Certificate Renewal System, the Costs Lawyer Client Survey, and the Costs Lawyer Qualification pathway. Research and intelligence outputs include the Annual Risk Outlook and the Costs Lawyers, Technology and Regulation Report. Technology infrastructure is intentionally lean: the organisation operates a virtual office from a Manchester PO Box, runs on Microsoft and AWS for email and cloud storage, and uses third-party accessibility tooling (Recite Me) and SurveyMonkey for consultations. No public-facing API or SDK exists.

CLSB's business model is a non-profit, fee-funded statutory regime. The organisation is funded entirely by annual practising fees collected from regulated Costs Lawyers, with each year's fee requiring approval from the Legal Services Board following public consultation. The practising fee has risen from £281 in 2022–2023 to £290 (2024), £305 (2025), and £312 (2026), generating £226,024 of income in 2025 against £234,452 of expenditure. All income is ring-fenced for regulatory purposes; the organisation is governed by a board of five non-executive directors and operates with approximately seven part-time staff. Recent strategic activity includes achieving top marks from the Legal Services Board for three consecutive years (2023–2025), a CEO transition, board refreshment, and modernisation of the Code of Conduct and Practising Rules following the Court of Appeal's Mazur ruling.

Name

Costs Lawyer Standards Board

Legal name

Costs Lawyer Standards Board Ltd

Website

https://clsb.info

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Costs Lawyer Standards Board is the statutory regulator for Costs Lawyers in England and Wales under the Legal Services Act 2007. It sets professional standards, maintains the public Register, handles disciplinary matters, and is funded by annual practising fees from approximately 723 regulated practitioners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Legal Services Regulation

NAICS

Regulation, Licensing, and Inspection of Miscellaneous Commercial Sectors (92615), Regulation, Licensing, and Inspection of Miscellaneous Commercial Sectors (926150)

SIC

Services-Legal Services (8111)

akta.pro primary industry

Regulatory & Compliance Law (BPAHAAAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Competition/Antitrust & Market Conduct Regulators (BPAIAOAD), Legal & Compliance (CLE, Paralegal CE) (EDAAALAB)

Keywords

• Legal services regulation
• Professional standards board
• Costs lawyer regulation
• Statutory legal regulator
• Professional conduct oversight

Headquarters

HQ city

Manchester, Greater Manchester

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Others, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Practising Fees: CLSB is funded entirely through annual practising fees collected from regulated Costs Lawyers. The fee is approved by the Legal Services Board each year. The 2026 fee is £312, up from £305 in 2025.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

CLSB is the statutory regulator for Costs Lawyers in England and Wales, operating under the Legal Services Act 2007 via delegated authority from the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL). It sets and enforces the professional conduct standards (Code of Conduct, Practising Rules, Disciplinary Rules), maintains a public Register of Costs Lawyers, processes annual practising certificate applications and renewals, handles complaints and disciplinary action, and provides regulatory guidance and ethical resources to the profession.

Product overview

The Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB) is the approved regulator of Costs Lawyers in England and Wales, operating under the Legal Services Act 2007. Rather than offering a technology product suite, CLSB provides a portfolio of regulatory services including the Register of Costs Lawyers (a public database of regulated practitioners), the Costs Lawyer Handbook (containing the Code of Conduct and regulatory rules), the Ethics Hub (interactive ethical guidance), an online practising certificate renewal system, the Costs Lawyer Client Survey (consumer feedback tool), the Costs Lawyer Qualification programme, and research publications including the Annual Risk Outlook and Technology & Regulation reports. These services collectively enable consumer protection, professional standards enforcement, and regulatory oversight of the Costs Lawyer profession.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Register of Costs Lawyers

Named customers1 record

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2011ACL is the profession's representative body and named approved regulator under the Legal Services Act 2007. CLSB is a wholly owned subsidiary of ACL. ACL delegated its regulatory functions to CLSB in 2011. Despite ownership, CLSB operates entirely independently and ACL does not interfere with CLSB's regulatory activities. Roles defined in Memorandum of Understanding reviewed June 2025.
• Legal Services BoardcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2007Oversight regulator for CLSB. LSB assesses CLSB's regulatory performance annually and must approve practising fees. LSB described CLSB as 'a model for smaller regulators' in 2024 performance assessment.
• Legal OmbudsmancoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHandles complaints about legal service providers including Costs Lawyers. CLSB shares information with LeO and there is a Memorandum of Understanding in place. CLSB pays annual levy to LeO (minimum £5,000 since 2014).
• Other Approved Regulators under Legal Services Act 2007coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCLSB collaborates with other approved regulators including Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Bar Standards Board, CILEx Regulation, and others on shared regulatory matters, cross-regulator issues, and consistent approaches to regulation.
• Legal ChoicesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration between legal services regulators in England and Wales to help the public understand legal services and find the right legal help. CLSB contributes annual funding (approximately £5,800) and participates in this consumer-facing initiative.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• CILEx Regulation: Independent regulator of Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) members. Comparable to CLSB as a smaller, specialist legal-professions regulator operating under the same Legal Services Act 2007 framework with LSB oversight.
• Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA): Approved regulator of solicitors in England and Wales under the Legal Services Act 2007. It is the only other legal regulator to have achieved top LSB marks alongside CLSB, and is structurally the closest comparator in terms of mandate, oversight regime, and fee-funded model.
• Bar Standards Board (BSB): Approved regulator of barristers in England and Wales under the Legal Services Act 2007. As a fellow frontline legal regulator with an overlapping regulatory perimeter (rights of audience, professional conduct), it is a direct peer for governance, fee-setting, and LSB oversight comparison.

Others

• Legal Ombudsman (LeO): Statutory complaints body for legal services in England and Wales. CLSB pays an annual levy to LeO and shares information via a Memorandum of Understanding, making LeO a key ecosystem partner rather than a competitor.
• Costs Assessment Working Group: Judicial working group in England and Wales focused on costs assessment and litigation-funding policy. Adjacent — not competing — but a critical stakeholder whose work directly affects the demand environment and case mix for Costs Lawyers.
• Costs Lawyer: Profession-level publications and resources for Costs Lawyers. A useful industry peer because it operates in the same addressable stakeholder community as CLSB's regulated population, though it is a media/title business rather than a regulator.

Regional players

• Institute of Paralegals: Professional body for paralegals in the UK. Adjacent to CLSB's scope because both involve auxiliary legal-service providers; useful as a benchmark for emerging or smaller legal-profession self-regulatory models.
• Legal Services Regulation Authority (LSRA - Ireland): Statutory regulator for legal services in Ireland. Comparable to CLSB as a small specialist legal-services regulator, but operating in a different jurisdiction; useful for cross-jurisdictional benchmarking of regulatory approaches.

Broad incumbents

• Legal Services Board (LSB): Oversight regulator for all approved regulators including CLSB. It approves CLSB's practising fees and conducts annual performance assessments; while not a frontline regulator, it is the strategic counterparty in CLSB's operating model.
• Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL): The professional representative body for Costs Lawyers and CLSB's parent organisation. Although it has a representative (not regulatory) remit, it sits within the same legal-profession ecosystem and competes with CLSB for member mindshare and value delivery.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/costs-lawyer-standards-board

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Costs Lawyer Standards Board