Williamson: welcomed the opportunity to develop a new regulatory framework As Peter Williamson draws to the end of his presidency, he reflects on the important reforms of the Law Society and consequent development of the profession during the past year


Immediately following my installation as president in July last year, the Law Society and the profession faced perhaps their most significant reform in decades, namely the 'Review of the Regulatory Framework for Legal Services in England and Wales' by Sir David Clementi.


The media was awash with speculation about the future of the Society and the profession. The Law Society, on the other hand, immediately welcomed the opportunity to develop a new framework fit for the demands of the 21st century.

We recognised early on the importance of ensuring that the profession made a powerful contribution to the debate. As such, we took time to reflect, consult and engage in dialogue with the profession and the public. It is immensely heartening to know that participation in the Clementi roadshows far exceeded expectations. Combined with the responses to the questionnaire sent to every practising certificate holder, it meant that we had a vast body of opinion to draw on when compiling our response to Sir David's consultation paper. This helped to ensure that our response, 'Independence and Quality', was a compelling vision for the future delivery of legal services in England and Wales. I believe it expresses clearly our commitment to modernisation of the legal profession and to more flexible and innovative forms of legal practice while retaining the professional core values - independence, integrity and confidentiality.

In many ways the review accords with work we already had in hand. In the past year, considerable progress has been made in relation to the Law Society's review of the Solicitors Practice Rules. The council's decision at the end of 2003 to permit fee-sharing and to ease the ban on referral fees is a positive step towards liberalisation. Work has also progressed on the new rules on conflict and confidentiality, which I believe will go some way to achieving much needed clarity in this area.

Alongside effective rule making, the Law Society has been working hard to maintain exceptional standards within the profession.

The City of London is undoubtedly a leading international legal centre, but it is in danger of losing out to competitors from abroad as a result of the failure of the commercial court to meet the needs of the business community at home and internationally. We have continued to press the government to provide the finance for the necessary modernisation to maintain London as a first-class dispute resolution centre. We have also continued to work hard to open practice rights for English and Welsh solicitors within the international legal community. It is for this reason that I toured some of the key emerging markets including India, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan during my year as president. There are real signs of progress as a result of these visits, which I hope will bear fruit in the long term.

The Law Society's campaign on behalf of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay was an extremely important part of our work to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights worldwide. It is work of which we can all be proud.

Constitutional reform has been high on the agenda during my presidential year and I am pleased that the Law Society has contributed significantly to the debate – and influenced it. We campaigned at length for improvements to the system for selecting judges and welcomed the government's plans to establish an independent judicial appointments commission and a supreme court. My hope is that the Bill, when it is finally passed, will create institutions that will be properly resourced and effective.

The review of the education and training framework also continues and last year we launched the diversity access scheme. The first cohort of scholars is scheduled to start professional training with the support of the scheme in September 2004. We also conducted a review of the profession's anti-discrimination rule, and changed the general regulations to make equality and diversity training an integral part of the role of Law Society board and committee members. These are all very positive steps.

Finally, the Society has been doing a great deal of work to ensure that our legal aid system provides equal access to high quality legal services for all. Throughout the year, we engaged in discussion with the profession about the long-term future of legal aid, culminating in the publication in December of 'Protecting Rights and Tackling Social Exclusion'. I am pleased that the Society has taken a leading role in the debate and that we are now finally making some progress in pushing the issue of legal aid up the agenda. The long awaited announcement by the government that there is to be a fundamental review of legal aid is very much welcomed and it will, I hope, herald the beginning of a new era for the provision of legal aid.

It has been a great honour and privilege to serve my profession as president and I thank everyone who has supported and encouraged me during the year. I shall leave office with many happy memories, particularly of the people I have met and worked with and I cannot conclude without mentioning especially the staff at the Law Society who do a superb job, sometimes in difficult circumstances.



Peter Williamson is the Law Society President