After more than six years at the top of the Law Society bureaucracy, Janet Paraskeva is moving on. Jonathan Ames assesses her legacy


If a week is a long time in politics, then six years at the centre of the Law Society must seem like an eternity. Indeed, when Chancery Lane launched a recruitment drive six years ago to fill its top bureaucratic slot, The Independent described the role as probably ‘the worst job in the country’.



If nothing else, it has involved overseeing a rollercoaster of change. When Janet Paraskeva – the woman who landed the newly-created chief executive post in 2000 – arrived at Chancery Lane, the Law Society had just unveiled a review of its corporate governance that heralded six years of non-stop reform. Even as she walks out the door next week, the evolution continues; the Society is now divided into three distinct segments, governed by two boards and an arguably neutered council, and creates a situation whereby three new chief executives will have to replace their predecessor.



Until Janet Paraskeva arrived, the Law Society’s top staff member was known by the antiquated title of secretary-general. With the change of label was meant to come a change of role. The chief executive was not only in the post to make sure the photocopiers and lifts worked, but to get involved in nuts-and-bolts policy-making. That enhanced role came at a price – Ms Paraskeva’s annual salary has nearly doubled in her six-year tenure, starting on £120,000 and rising to £196,000 with a £29,000 bonus in 2005 (although it should be pointed out that splitting the functions has created an even bigger salary bill, with the three new chief executives set to rack up total annual wages of £440,000 plus bonuses in their first year).



Has it been worth it? Has Ms Paraskeva performed? One of her most prominent supporters is David McIntosh, the current chairman of the City of London Law Society. He worked closely with her during his presidency of the national body in 2001. ‘Her skill in the field of change management was just what the Law Society needed from the time she joined until the time she left,’ he says now. ‘Throughout, she has been the right person for the job.’



Not all commentators are so effusive or positive. Ms Paraskeva is a forceful character and she has engendered powerful reactions both on the Law Society Council and among staff. Indeed, she has been criticised for taking too prominent a policy role. Council member Sue Nelson says: ‘The agenda for the Law Society should be set by the council and not the senior staff.’



But back to the start – was it the worst job in the country? ‘It has not been,’ responds Ms Paraskeva without hesitation. ‘There have been some moments when it has felt pretty tense and difficult, but it has certainly not been the worst job that I’ve ever had.’



Tense moments were waiting on the chief executive’s arrival in the form of an inherited legal action involving the former Law Society Vice-President, Kamlesh Bahl. That high-profile action rumbled on throughout much of Ms Paraskeva’s first three years in the post, but nonetheless she enjoyed ‘a fairly chunky honeymoon period’.



In general terms, Ms Paraskeva’s cites as her greatest challenge the task of navigating the oil tanker that is the Law Society Council and its bureaucracy into the 21st century.



‘The first difficulties I faced were over the introduction of a new IT system – it was expensive, therefore there were concerns about changes and whether we had made the right or wrong decisions. And as with any IT system, there were lots of difficulties. The single biggest difficulty was that many on the council thought they should take detailed decisions about it.’



And there are still those on the council who take the view that the IT programme failed. Says one: ‘It was a squandered opportunity that left the Law Society way behind the pace.’ However, Ms Paraskeva defends the project, maintaining that the profession derived tangible benefits.



‘We are now able to be in e-mail contact with about 70,000 solicitors, which wasn’t possible before that investment. That was a great help during our highly successful campaigns on stamp duty land tax and inheritance tax. And our Web site improves by the week. There have been some really significant changes, but people don’t see the architecture underneath and they don’t understand how much it can cost to change that architecture.’



So is the organisation now fit for the 21st century? Again Ms Paraskeva is confident that she has succeeded. ‘We have amended the basic structure and the delivery mechanisms within the organisation. We’ve improved the IT and moved from a position where staff had hundreds and hundreds of paper-based data collections to a situation where we are not exactly where we want to be but we are pretty far down the road.’



Part of the fitness regime was participating in Sir David Clementi’s government-commissioned review of legal services regulation and anticipating Whitehall’s response. So far, it seems the Law Society has been one step ahead, which Ms Paraskeva counts as one of her greatest achievements at Chancery Lane.



But it is the thorny subject of complaints-handling that has vexed Ms Paraskeva and the Law Society for many years. A few days into the job in 2000, she told the Gazette that the then Office for the Supervision of Solicitors could recover from its position of having a huge backlog of old cases and from being routinely pilloried by first the Legal Services Ombudsman and later the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner.



The Society threw massive resource at the problem in the form of both money and staff, but ultimately the commissioner recently levied a £220,000 fine in relation to the Society’s proposed future complaints-handling programme, and the Legal Services Bill will legislate to hand the function to the proposed office for legal complaints in roughly two years.



Where did complaints go wrong? ‘What I didn’t know then (six years ago) was that there were some structural things in the way of it improving – basic things such as having completely to revise the telephony. Putting the communications technology right was when we turned the big corner – and that was about three years ago.’



Having turned that corner, Ms Paraskeva still adopts the view that it is right for complaints-handling to be dealt with by an independent body. ‘You will never get a complaints-handling system perfect. But however perfect we might have got it, the difficulty is with the public’s perception of a system that is owned by solicitors.’



Perhaps the biggest thorn in the Law Society’s side in relation to complaints has been Zahida Manzoor, who wears the dual hats of ombudsman and commissioner. ‘She treats us harshly,’ says Ms Paraskeva. ‘She expects us to deliver against very demanding targets – but then that’s her job.



‘Sometimes it feels unfair. For example, in her last report, she commends the Bar Council for its separation of representation and regulation functions; but she makes no comment in relation to arrangements made at the Law Society. So whether or not her comments about our complaints-handling are just or unjust, it is uncomfortable not to be credited for the things we’ve done well, and that has led to tensions that might otherwise not have been there.’



The Law Society’s battle with the complaints-handling conundrum has been expensive. In 2000/01, the practising certificate fee was £495 and the Society’s budget £67 million. The fee has doubled under Ms Paraskeva’s tenure, while the budget increased by only 50%. Nonetheless, the outgoing chief executive insists the profession has received value for money.



‘It now has a separate regulation organisation within the Law Society. The extra money was needed to ensure that the regulatory structure and service was such that the government would not take regulation away – the choice was that the Society would lose self-regulation. The profession had to pay to keep it. It has paid and it has succeeded. Had we not created a rigorous and successful regulatory directorate, then we may have had a very different recommendation from David Clementi.’



Ms Parakseva is keen to point out that the practising certificate fee was reduced during her last year in post. She is diplomatic on the delicate issue of which side of the divided Law Society should set the fee in the future – the council or the Regulation Board. ‘It has to be a partnership between the two because the regulator has to have the money that it needs to regulate properly. But because we have not lost profession-led regulation, the profession must have a say in whether that amount is reasonable or not.’



She forecasts a bumpy ride ahead. ‘I can’t believe there won’t be tensions. But the way in which the Regulation Board has been set up with a solicitor majority and an ex-Law Society President (Peter Williamson) in the chair, means that you’ve got an understanding on that side of the way the Law Society Council operates and an understanding of some of the basic issues that solicitors face.’



While for the time being there is still an umbrella brand of the Law Society, it is not difficult to envisage an evolutionary process that ends in complete and total separation. Far from resisting this move, senior Society officers and staff appear to have encouraged it, which is a long way removed from the mantra of a few years ago – that the Society must be a regulator to be an effective representative body.



‘When I came in, I bought the mantra,’ says Ms Paraskeva candidly. ‘What changed my mind was a number of practical examples. Acting as the regulator, I would write to people saying this is what you must do – for example, in miners’ compensation claims – and those solicitors would write back and say: “Ah, but as head of our representation body we want you to take action on our behalf against yourself.”



‘How long will this new structure last? It has the potential to last a long time if people are prepared to work out the tensions. If not – if there is conflict soon – then I’m sure there will be moves towards total separation.’



Janet Paraskeva has without doubt been one of highest-profile senior bureaucrats in Chancery Lane’s history. Even the manner of her departure attracted attention when she accepted appointments to no fewer than four outside bodies, not least being the post of First Civil Service Commissioner, and as a non-executive director on the board of the new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).



The SOCA appointment triggered allegations of a conflict of interest as the agency is tasked with enforcing money laundering reporting rules over solicitors and other professionals – a conflict she strongly refutes. ‘I can use my experience of solicitors to make SOCA listen – and I think that has happened. There has been an advantage to the profession in that area rather than a conflict.’



Summarising six years in the Chancery Lane whirlwind is difficult, but Ms Paraskeva is nothing if not abrupt and succinct in her views: ‘When I arrived at the organisation it would not have been wrong to describe it as being broken. It is now mended.’ The trick for her three successors is to make sure the mend holds.