City lawyers have given a warm welcome to David Clementi's widely-trailed recommendations for reforming the UK legal services market as the profession and regulators digest the wide-ranging report.

Speaking in the wake of Clementi's report, which was published on Wednesday (15 December), senior lawyers and regulators gave strong backing to the proposed reforms.

Key recommendations include the creation of a Legal Services Board to oversee bodies like the Law Society and reforms to allow Legal Disciplinary Practices (LDPs), which would allow barristers and solicitors to work together.

Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham said the reforms were long overdue.

"[The review] has produced some effective solutions and [we] urge the Government to find the earliest possible opportunity to take forward his recommendations."

Popham also backed the proposals for LDPs, which would also allow non-lawyers to manage and own legal businesses.

"The opportunity to work more closely with lawyers from different professional bodies, and the ability to discard the needless bureaucracy which currently requires barristers to re-qualify as solicitors before joining our partnership, is welcomed."

James Bateson, an insurance partner and executive committee member at Norton Rose, said: "Although there is unlikely to be much appetite publicly to invest in law firms, we might see tie-ups between firms and clients or between firms and barristers chambers. However, I think we're more likely to see major financial institutions taking an interest [in law firms]."

Slaughter and May practice partner David Frank told Legal Week: "[The proposed changes] to the function of the Law Society are inevitable. You've got to remember the report is aimed at the profession generally, not just the major City firms. In terms of giving the public confidence in the profession, it's got to be welcomed."

As expected, the Office of Fair Trading, which had already called for similar reforms in an earlier report into the professions, swiftly issued a strong backing for the package.

OFT chairman John Vickers said: "The Clementi recommendations combine deregulation – greater freedom for legal service providers to compete – with better regulation. Users of legal services and the wider public will benefit from early and effective reform to secure these improvements."

The report, which has already been endorsed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, drew a more muted response from legal bodies.

The Law Society, which looks set to be effectively broken up, had already largely shifted its own stance to favour Clementi's expected recommendation that its regulatory and representative powers be split, with consumer complaints transferred to another body.

Commenting on the report, Law Society president Edward Nally said: "We have no problem with scrutiny by an independent board and look forward to working with it."

As expected the Bar Council emerged as the only major legal body to effectively oppose the thrust of the reforms.

Bar Council chairman Stephen Irwin, who hands over the reins to Guy Mansfield in the New Year, used the report to highlight a "major marketing push" by the Bar in 2005, but also reiterated the importance of an independent legal sector.

"Above all, any changes must not be allowed to compromise the fundamental independence of lawyers," he warned.