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GAZETTE
NOVEMBER 1991
Society in relation to the handling
of complaints and, at the same
time, enhance the image of the
profession as one which maintains
the highest standards of pro-
fessional behaviour and provides a
quality service at reasonable cost.
Taken in conjunction with the
establishment of the office of
Legal Ombudsman -
an official
who will have a role in overseeing
the handling of complaints by
the Society - this should provide
valuable reassurance to the
public.
The Society will also have a new
power to apply to the High Court to
suspend the practising certificate
of a solicitor who breaches in a
serious way any of the regulations
made under the Solicitors Acts.
There is also a new power under
which the Society can intervene in
a practice where a solicitor has
abandoned his practice, a provision
which will give the High Court
important new powers to direct
banks or other financial institutions
to furnish to the Society informa-
tion relating to the financial affairs
of a practice, a power to make
professional indemnity insurance
compulsory and a provision which
restricts newly admitted solicitors
from practising as sole practitioners
in the first three years after quali-
fication. Moreover, in cases where
the Society, having intervened in a
practice, applies to the High Court,
the Court will have a new general
power to make
any order
in
relation to a practice to protect or
secure the rights of a client or make
an order which the Court feels is in
the public interest or in the interest
of the profession itself or to assist
the Society generally in discharging
its functions under the Act. This is
an important new general power
which will give great flexibility to
the Society, acting through the
Court, in the future. When one adds
to the foregoing, new provisions
which substantially increase the
penalties for offences under the
Act, you have, I think, a compre-
hensive package which should lead
to a more effective policing of the
profession and a more speedy
'neutralising' of transgressors.
Disciplinary
As the profession is aware, it is
considered in many quarters to be
a serious drawback that, under
existing law, only the High Court
itself can impose a sanction on a
solicitor who transgresses. This
system is clearly unsatisfactory.
The provisions of the Constitution
relating to the administration of
justice inhibit the granting to the
Society itself of a power to strike
a solicitor off the Roll or suspend
his right to practise. The Bill,
however, goes as far as is
constitutionally permissible to give
the Disciplinary Committee of the
High Court the power to impose
sanctions. In addition, the Council
itself (acting as it, presumably, will
through the Registrar's Committee)
is given a power to require solicitors
to pay up to £1,000 into the
Compensation Fund in certain
circumstances.
The Bill will also enable the
President of the High Court to
appoint up to five
lay persons
to
be members of the Disciplinary
Committee. This is a reform which
the Society itself has sought and
will help to introduce greater public
accountability in relation to the
Society's important role in main-
taining discipline. The profession
itself has no reason to fear this
development. The international ex-
perience suggests that, frequently,
lay members are less severe than
the solicitor members of discip-
linary tribunals. However, it is
important that justice is not only
done adequately in practice but is
also, of course, seen to be done.
Education
The Bill does nothing to disturb
the control of the Society over
admissions policy and, therefore,
the Society will remain firmly in
charge. The task for the future will
be to achieve a balance between,
on the one hand, the need to
maintain an open policy on
admissions to all who are qualified
and, on the other hand, ensuring
that standards are not lessened and
livelihoods threatened through
over-supply of new entrants.
There are, however, some important
changes in the Bill in relation to
education which will provide a
framework for the development of
the profession in the future. The
changes are in the nature of enabling
provisions which will require policy
decisions to be taken by the Society.
These include:
• a power to enable joint
professional legal education
with barristers to be introduced
• provisions which will enable the
Society to ease the transition
arrangements for barristers
wishing to become solicitors
• a power which will enable the
Society to introduce com-
pulsory continuing
legal
education in the future
• a provision which reduces the
period of apprenticeship to a
maximum of three years in all
cases.
Mention should also be made, in
this context, of the provision which
will enable the Society to require
evidence that a person is a fit and
proper person to be admitted as a
solicitor. The Society has in the
past been inhibited by the absence
of such a power to prevent certain
persons from being admitted.
Competition and the
future of the profession
There are two other areas of
current concern to the profession
where the Bill contains a number of
important provisions. The first
relates to the area of competition.
Members of the profession will be
aware that this Bill comes fairly
closely on the heels of a major
report by the Fair Trade Commis-
sion on restrictive practices in the
legal profession. That report
examined the question of ending
the legal monopoly held by
solicitors on certain areas of legal
work and made a number of
recommendations. Some of these
are now reflected in the Bill. The
most important - and contentious
- are the provisions which will
allow banks and trust corporations
to do probate work and banks to do
conveyancing. There is also a pro-
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