It’s a tough and unattractive brief, keeping lawyers in order. But David Edmonds clearly wants to do it — and not for the money, he adds: although a £63,000 salary for 70 days a year will surely help to ease any downside.

So why would he take on the chairmanship of the Legal Services Board, the new arch regulator of the legal profession? “What really attracted me [he was headhunted] was the thought of setting up a new organisation, whose prime objective was to do with consumer benefit. I spent five years as director-general at Oftel, the telecoms regulator, and helped to set up Ofcom, so I’ve experience of creating a new organisation.”

But legal services are not telecommunications. “Some principles are the same,” he says, “in terms of providing access to a network and in terms of standards — because you have a clear concept of consumer benefit to do with quality of practice. But the difference is to do with the relationship between lawyer and client, which is of a special nature.”

Secondly, the legal world “is a much more sophisticated area where, for the benefit of clients, lawyers regulate themselves”.

There will be sighs of relief that Edmonds does not see lawyers and telecommunications in the same light; and that he favours self-regulation by the profession, below his overarching control. The question is how much control will he exert? Edmonds dislikes the phrase “light-touch regulator”, saying that it “implies that you don’t get involved where you have to. I only use the word proportionate. Equally, I only get involved where I need to.”

The degree of intervention will depend on how well the profession operates now. He has formed no view. The first task, he says, is analysis: when evidence has been gathered he can test it for transparency, effectiveness and proportionality — then decide strategy. “It’s the basic application of scientific methods to being a regulator.”

Edmonds, 64, a fit and youthful father of four and grandfather of ten who lives in Wimbledon, southwest London, is a keen opera buff (he sees everything at the Royal Opera House), supporter of Fulham Football Club, mountain walker and golfer. He was appointed by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice.

The Legal Services Act that sets up the board paves the way for a shake-up in the way that lawyers provide their services, enabling them to join other professionals in partnership, or benefit from outside investment or ownership. It also creates an Office for Legal Complaints. The board, with a £4 million budget, will set and enforce the regulatory framework. The reform timetable is lengthy but Edmonds wants to bring it forward, so “Tesco law” — lawyers employed by supermarkets or clothing stores to offer legal advice — may be nearer than 2011.

Edmonds is a non-lawyer, as the Act requires. Nonetheless, he has plenty of experience of them in a range of settings — through his work as a regulator where “life depended on getting the law right and not making oneself susceptible to judicial review”; through working with teams of in-house lawyers (at Oftel and when a managing director with the NatWest running “back offices”); and through parliamentary counsel when at the Housing Corporation taking through the Housing Act 1988. And, of course, as a punter and using lawyers to sell a property.

What is his view? “Lawyers are very, very intelligent. I have seen some superb service in my corporate life . . . very bright, committed people. Almost all my experience of the law has been good.”

He is determined that his own outfit will be a match for the lawyers it deals with: “top people involved from the start.” His first task is selecting up to ten board members: 300 applications have been whittled to 50 names. The board, with a majority of non-lawyers, will be in place by September. A chief executive is also needed. “My goal is to recruit people who have the skill sets and intellectual abilities to be able to deal on an equal footing with the legal profession. You can’t have a board that doesn’t have the same quality of intellect.”

As to how he will proceed, the clue is with his work at Ofcom, where they did not “go down the Civil Service route” for staff but recruited from outside. A textbook he helped to write about setting up the regulator will serve as a guide.

The board is a “classic British compromise”, he says. It is not a full-blown regulator directing the legal profession, nor complete devolution to the professional bodies. “I don’t agree that this is a halfway house and that we will need to move to direct regulation. We will need some changes but, as yet, we don’t know their extent. A devolved system can be made to work.”

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