The purpose of this Act is to—
| (a) | provide a legislative framework for the transformation and restructuring of the legal profession that embraces the values underpinning the Constitution and ensures that the rule of law is upheld; |
| (b) | broaden access to justice by putting in place— |
| (i) | a mechanism to determine fees chargeable by legal practitioners for legal services rendered that are within the reach of the citizenry; |
| (iii) | measures that provide equal opportunities for all aspirant legal practitioners in order to have a legal profession that broadly reflects the demographics of the Republic; |
| (c) | create a single unified statutory body to regulate the affairs of all legal practitioners and all candidate legal practitioners in pursuit of the goal of an accountable, efficient and independent legal profession; |
| (d) | protect and promote the public interest; |
| (e) | provide for the establishment of an Office of Legal Services Ombud; |
| (f) | provide a fair, effective, efficient and transparent procedure for the resolution of complaints against legal practitioners and candidate legal practitioners; and |
| (g) | create a framework for the— |
| (i) | development and maintenance of appropriate professional and ethical norms and standards for the rendering of legal services by legal practitioners and candidate legal practitioners; |
| (ii) | regulation of the admission and enrolment of legal practitioners; and |
| (iii) | development of adequate training programmes for legal practitioners and candidate legal practitioners. |
