The Council may from time to time, in writing, grant to any body of persons operating or intending to operate a law office or legal advice bureau in any locality in which there is or (but for the office or bureau) would be an unmet legal need, or to any solicitor employed by any such body in any such office or bureau, exemption from all or any of the provisions of sections 17, 19, and 20 of this Act; and every such exemption shall have effect according to its tenor.

The Society may, after consultation with the body of persons concerned, impose in respect of any such exemption such conditions as the Society thinks fit, including any condition designed to ensure that, in general, the law office or legal advice bureau does not undertake any class of legal work in respect of which there is no unmet legal need in that locality.

Part VI of this Act (which relates to the Solicitors’ Fidelity Guarantee Fund) shall apply, with all necessary modifications, to any office or bureau to which this section applies as if the operation of the office or bureau were the carrying on by a solicitor of the practice of his profession on his own account without partners; and for the purposes of that Part, as applied by this subsection, all fees and levies shall be payable in the same manner and at the same times as they are payable by solicitors.

In this section the expression ‘unmet legal need’, in relation to any locality, includes legal work required by residents of the locality which, because of the uneconomic nature of the work or the unavailability of practitioners willing to undertake the work, is not being adequately undertaken by practitioners in the ordinary course of their practice.”