Lawyers, banks, mortgages and liability insurance

In Tribune Business yesterday, Dr. Peter Maynard, in his bid to become president of the Bar Association charged that commercial banks and other lenders "made mortgage and conveyancing "more widely accessible", rather than sending it to just a select few law firms."

He went on to suggest that the barrier to more lawyers being elegible for this business is the cost of liability insurance.

So which is it, discriminatory practices or the high cost of liability insurance?

The article piqued my interest after being in a meeting recently where someone provided a brief overview of terrible state the property registry is in and the government needed to repair their records or lack thereof.

So it appears to me that by setting a strict liability contingency on lawyers for title searches/mortgage work, the bank just might be protecting their depositors assets.

What's your take?