Kevin Martin outlines his belief that change needs to lead to improvement as he takes up the reins as vice-president of the Law Society

Solicitors might query the need for the Law Society to have a vice-president and a deputy vice-president serving alongside the president.

However, each of these office-holders performs a distinct role. The reason is that Law Society is a complex organisation, regulating 116,000 solicitors, and also representing their interests, as well as engaging in important work on law reform.


It engages in a vast range of contact with stakeholders, the profession and the government, and the workload is surely too much for one person. As I embark on my role as vice-president, I face a number of issues. Perhaps the most challenging, important role for the vice-president is chairing the Law Society’s main board.


The fact that it is chaired by the vice-president frees the president to undertake the role of principal ambassador for the profession. Serving for a year as vice-president also gives me time to make the necessary contacts with stakeholders, allowing me to be an effective president from day one.


And, of course, it also allows me time to consider what the priorities should be for my presidency. I assess my priorities for the year up to my term as president in 2005 as:


• To make constructive contributions both personally and through chairing the main board to the reform process initiated by the Law Society’s governance review group;


• To consider carefully the recommendations of the Clementi review when it reports in December and if the report proposes model A for regulation, to oppose it, as it is a model that will mean the end of profession-led regulation and of the profession’s independence from government;


• To assist the Law Society in the performance of its current roles and responsibilities as a regulator and representation organisation;


• To campaign for a better legal aid system, and not to hold back in criticising the government and other agencies when they under-perform;


• To communicate more effectively with all interested parties, and particularly with the profession.


Among my many areas of concern are the virtual melt-down in the legal aid system, inefficiencies in our courts, both civil and criminal (a phenomenon through the decades I have been in practice), and the arrogance of government and some of its agencies. The legal aid system has conspicuously failed to extend access to justice - quite the reverse.


Increasingly, solicitors do not want to do this demanding work for 1980s remuneration while contending with a 1984-style bureaucracy. There has been so much bewildering change - and for what?


Naively, I used to think change was intended to bring about improvement. Can anyone, reviewing the legal aid system of ten to 15 years ago and comparing it with what we have now, seriously agree that the reforms have been for the better?


And to make matters worse, legislation, much of it ill thought out and badly drafted, proliferates, thus causing greater strain on the courts, the legal aid system and those who attempt to work within it. There is much for the Law Society to do in these areas.


I agree with our current president, Edward Nally, that we must strive to get our internal governance reforms and structures right, and to continue to modernise our regulation of solicitors - otherwise it will be done for us.


But we must also continue to be a strong voice for the profession. We want the profession to know that the Law Society does its best for all members of the profession.


Kevin Martin is the vice-president of the Law Society