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GAZETTE
V I E W P 0 I
N T
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1996
Blueprint Produced for Law Society
Shake-up - Strategic Plan for the
Profession Still Required
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
have been a bland and toothless
document indeed. The
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
have for some time been moving
strongly in the right direction.
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.
The members of the Working Group
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.
Ken Murphy
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