The Gazette 1995

GAZETTE

APRIL 1995

V I

E W P 0 I N T

Radical Approach required in Law

Society 'Root and Branch Review'

Springtime. The spirits rise. The poets

write. New life grows from the dead

earth. Blossoms and buds appear before

changing, almost overnight, into leaves.

Nature is conducting a 'root and branch

review'. So is the Law Society.

The difference, of course, is that

nature's process of renewal is

undertaken annually. For the Law

Society such a process is rare indeed.

The Society's archives contain the

results of two or three different stabs at

such reviews undertaken over the last

twenty five years. They appear,

however, to have been less than full-

blooded affairs. Indeed, measured in

terms of resulting change, they seem to

have been positively anaemic. It is to be

hoped and expected that this review will

be different. The immediate source of

the review was a stormy Annual

General Meeting of the Law Society last

November. That meeting heard a dam

burst of complaint, apparently growing

for many years, that the Society is

deeply out of touch with its membership

and that its ever-increasing costs are of

serious concern.

It was clear from the outset that the call

for a committee to review the Society

and its activities commanded

overwhelming majority support in the

meeting, including widespread support

among the Society's Council members

who also felt frustration with the status

quo and recognised the need for change.

Those proposing a review were well-

informed and constructive in their

approach and repeatedly made clear that

dissatisfaction with Council members'

performance was not an issue. The great

majority of Council members are re-

elected year after year and tribute was

paid to them for the conscientious and

capable way in which they bear the

Council's enormous workload. In

addition, reference was made to the

report delivered a few years ago by the

independent consultants, Price

Waterhouse, which found that the Law

Society is, if anything, understaffed

rather than overstaffed. The Council

members who deal with the Society's

staff know them to be particularly

hardworking and professional.

So, if neither the Society's Council

members nor its staff are the problem,

what is? The Review Committee was

instructed to focus primarily on the

Society's structures. If the Committee

confines itself to the signals emitted at

the AGM then it will probably return

later this year with a report

recommending fewer and smaller

committees, Council membership terms

of perhaps three years instead of one,

limits on the number of terms which

may be served and an alternative to the

traditional 'Buggin's turn' method of

selecting the Society's President. A few

recommendations on how to cut

spending will probably be thrown in for

good measure.

While such a review would be

important, it would represent a missed

opportunity. Although such changes

would be significant, analysed more

deeply they would be cosmetic and

superficial. The core of the problem

would remain untouched. This is

because to truly address the problem the

review must extend beyond the Law

Society to include an economic and

strategic examination of the profession

itself. What are the strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats to

the solicitors' profession as it

approaches the twenty first century? It

would make no sense to consider

whether or not the Law Society is

meeting the needs of the profession

without identifying precisely what the

profession's needs are.

The solicitors' profession is reeling

under unprecedented levels of internal

and external competition, growth in

numbers, consumer demand,

government regulation, loss of social

esteem and declining profitability where

profit exists at all. It is essential that the

profession correctly identifies the nature

and scale of the forces which are

changing the environment in which it

must operate so that it may predict these

changes and shape the process.

Having done that, the next essential

step is to develop a realistic and

coherent plan of action, identifying

short, medium and long-term

objectives together with the practical

means of achieving them, and to build

a consensus of support throughout the

profession for that plan. Although

much of the Law Society's activities

are regulatory and prescribed by

statute, all of the 'trade union' role is

discretionary. There is nothing to

prevent its transformation.

The biggest problem with the Law

Society is not the number of

committees or the method of selection

of the President. The biggest problem,

remarkable for an organisation of its

size and importance, is that it has no

strategic plan which analyses where it

wants the profession to be in ten, five

or even two years from now and

identifies the steps which must be

taken to achieve these objectives.

Every member of the profession has

an interest in the outcome of this

review and should be prepared to

contribute to it as invited in the

March

Gazette.

You should write

to the review committee with

your views.

When, in springtime, nature

undertakes its 'root and branch

review' it does so in accordance with

a blueprint. It knows where it is going

and what it wants to achieve. The Law

Society review process must produce

such a blueprint and be conducted in a

radical spirit. Such a spirit is

expressed - springtime is for poets -

in the concluding lines of Philip

Larkin's

The Trees:-

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In full grown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

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