The Gazette 1996

GAZETTE

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1996

V I E W P 0 I N T

Blueprint Produced for Law Society Shake-up - Strategic Plan for the Profession Still Required

have been a bland and toothless document indeed. The

Every organisation needs to be shaken- up from time to time. Such an exercise has been overdue in the Law Society for many years. The Review Working Group has thoroughly shaken the Law Society tree. The Group's Report, copied to every member of the Society last November, provides a challenging and, in many ways, radical blueprint for change in the structure of the Council, in the administration and in the finances of the Society. If the Report's 106 recommendations, or at least the great majority of them, are implemented it should create a Society which is more streamlined, efficient and responsive both to the members' needs and to their wishes. As recommended in the Report, at the Society's Annual General Meeting on 23 November, 1995, a resolution was passed calling on the Society's Council to summon a Special General Meeting of the Society to be held on or before 8 March, 1996, for the purpose of considering the measures required for the Council to implement the recommendations of the Report within a limited time-frame. The meeting has in fact been scheduled for Blackhall Place at 6.30p.m. on Thursday, 7 March, 1996. Attention now switches to the Law Society Council which has not yet discussed the substance of the Report at the time of writing. How will it deal with the Report? The implementation of most of the 106 recommendations should be relatively uncontroversial. Most of these recommendations represent little more than applied common sense and, indeed, a number have already been implemented. It is likely, however, that some of the Report's proposals will not command the unanimous support of the Council. There is no harm in that. A Report which all members of the Council could have readily embraced would

readily accept that they have no monopoly on wisdom and that there are undoubtedly other good ideas which simply did not occur to them. Nevertheless, the Report contains the most comprehensive examination and assessment of the structure, administration and finances of the Law Society ever undertaken. It is very rare for a Gazette Viewpoint to be signed. This one is signed because it is proper to reveal that its author was a member of the Review Working Group and the views expressed must be seen in that light. I take this opportunity to retrospectively acknowledge authorship of the Viewpoint in the April 1995 issue of the Gazette which called for a radical approach to the review and argued that the narrow terms of reference would not allow the Working Group to truly address the problems of the profession. This was because the Working Group could not engage in the economic and strategic examination of the profession itself which, I believe, is still necessary. Such an examination would research and identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the solicitors' profession as it approaches the twenty first century. The next essential step would be to develop a realistic and coherent plan of action. This plan should identify short, medium and long-term objectives, together with the practical means of achieving them, and build a consensus of support through the profession for the plan. This task remains to be undertaken. The first step, however, is to have a successful Special General Meeting of the Society on 7 March, 1996. The business of the meeting is relevant to every solicitor. You should be there and make your voice heard. It's your Society. It's your future.

recommendations in relation to (a) ten year time-limits for Council service, (b) a new means of electing the President and (c) ending the Council attendance privilege of past presidents, will understandably constitute sensitive issues for Council members. Although concern at the level of the Society's costs and indebtedness in recent years was one of the main motives for the review, in fact there is relatively little in the Report to do with the Society's finances. This is because since the Working Group was established, indeed even for a period before that, the Society's Finance Committee began to impose what the Committee's chairman refers to as a "reign of terror". While further work remains to be done, the Review Group recognised that the Society's finances Although a number of different themes are evident in the Report, for example, the desire to enrich the Council with more regular infusions of new blood, to transact Council and committee business in a more efficient way and to shape a Society whose work would be more relevant and accessible to its members, two objectives emerged of particular importance, namely: • to bring the representational role of the Society out from under the shadow of the regulatory/educational role with a view to a more assertive, forceful and profesional representation of the interests of solicitors, both in the media and among decision makers generally, and; • to greatly improve communication between the institutional Law Society and its members involving, among other things, an increase in member services. have for some time been moving strongly in the right direction.

Ken Murphy

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The members of the Working Group

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