The City of London Law Society is a specialist group that works with, rather than competes with, the Law Society, writes David McIntosh


Speculation regarding competition between the City of London Law Society (CLLS) and the national Law Society for the support of City solicitors is misplaced.



The renewal of the CLLS through its recruitment of corporate members, including all 25 of the UK's largest law firms, has been based upon the need for it to fill the gap between the considerable self-sufficiency of its member firms and what the Law Society can best do for them. An example of the latter is campaigning, at a national level, for establishment and practice rights abroad.



The CLLS has been transparent about this. Indeed, the five Law Society Council members for the City of London, including the national President, Fiona Woolf, are members of the CLLS's main committee and have been privy to its planning. Furthermore, at a time when other local law societies were wobbling over the Law Society's efforts to reinvent itself as a solely representative body, the CLLS stood out in its unequivocal and public support for a renewed Law Society, strong for all solicitors.



We depart on roles only where undivided and undiluted representation for sectional City commercial practice interests is required; where a second and more partisan voice is needed, and where the City issue needs to be the first priority - not second to the Law Society's current most-important concern, such as legal aid.



Collaboration between the CLLS and Law Society in responding to the Clementi reforms and Legal Services Bill provides a good example. The CLLS was the only local law society called to give evidence before the joint Parliamentary committee, and involved in regular discussions regarding the Bill with the government. The CLLS has been concentrating on the alternative business structure aspects and the need for corporate consumers to be included in the Bill's consumer panel, whilst also supporting the Law Society in fighting for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to be independent of government and free from day-to-day control by the proposed legal services board.



This template for both joint and separate roles also applies to the need for City practitioners to be pointedly represented on practice issues before the SRA as it gathers its own regulatory momentum. That is why - through its newly formed professional rules and regulation committee, chaired by Chris Perrin of Clifford Chance - the CLLS is pursuing its own consultative relationship with the SRA.



For similar reasons, the CLLS is also, in tandem with its international corporate members, setting up a direct relationship with the European Commission on EU regulations. Here we will continue to work with the Law Society through its membership of the UK's delegation to the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), but on City practice issues will also assert its own voice.



The need for such purposeful representation for City of London practitioners is a key reason for the CLLS's corporate support, and for a reinvigorated CLLS working with and alongside the Law Society.



But this does not detract from the determination of the CLLS, with its members, to do all it can to make the post-Clementi Law Society an effective representative force for the solicitors' profession as a whole. This, I hope, will be achieved through the CLLS's Law Society Council members and the direct support of its corporate member firms.



It is in the best interest of CLLS members to continue to back two horses. That is why it is wise for the CLLS and the Law Society to continue to work together whilst recognising their agendas have differences with distinctions.



David McIntosh is chairman of the City of London Law Society