Trade unions have always given their members free legal advice. But there could be a market for the paid-for variety, says Jeff Zindani


For more than 100 years, trade unions have provided free legal services to their members. Even the government has recognised the special status of trade unions and professional associations by allowing personal injury funding to be undertaken on a collective conditional fee basis.


Since the late 1980s, trade union law firms have grown in size while union membership has seen a relative decline. It is difficult to be precise about the size of these law firms but this sector of the market is probably producing more than £100 million in fees from the work undertaken, mainly from the


personal injury field. Paradoxically, the best recruiting sergeant for most trade unions has been the provision of legal services, even though they have been hard pressed to deliver on a limited budget a wide range of specialist services.


With the advent of claims companies and competition from legal expenses insurance companies, trade unions have been trying to claw back what they have lost. This competition is likely to increase with law firms themselves now adopting aggressive marketing strategies aimed at capturing part of this market place.


It is no wonder that trade unions are now looking at the Clementi review of legal services as an opportunity to develop their legal services and possibly increase membership. It may seem heresy in the world of trade union law firms to say that they must now pay like everyone else for the referral of cases, and more worrying, the possibility of trade unions owning or having an equity stake in a law firm. To borrow a New Labour slogan, trade unions are likely to have new relationships with their panel firms based on 'fairness, not favours'.


The cat was let out of the bag when Sir David Clementi, in his consultation paper, stated that: '... another dimension to LDPs [legal disciplinary partnerships] is the possibility that ownership of the business is separated from its management... Thus in the LDP model the legal practice might in fact be owned by another firm, such as a bank or an affinity group, which might be unconnected with the business of legal services'.


To date there has not been any real enthusiasm shown by trade unions to go down this path, but it will be just a matter of time before they connect to the value of the work and what their expertise as an affinity group can offer the general public. Most workers who are happy to use Tesco for their weekly shopping or to trust the RAC to deal with a roadside breakdown are more likely to go through a trade union for advice on an accident at work or an employment dispute.



The trade unions law firms themselves are unlikely to welcome such a radical change, particularly, if this means a share of their profits. As one firm, in its own response to Clementi, stated: 'We do not believe it is possible to uphold the integrity of the legal services provided unless a significant majority of those who manage and run [LDPs] are lawyers... We ... recommend that restrictions apply to the ability of non-lawyers to hold capital in a firm. Say, two-thirds of capital must be lawyer capital.'


Trade unions are unlikely to be persuaded by such a case when profits are made from their members' cases and financial imperatives force them to look at new income streams. They have had their own history of closed shops and deregulation may allow them greater control and/or influence. Perhaps, in the future it will be 'TUC law' or some other worker affinity group that workers will be turning to for advice, and not the traditional law firms.



Jeff Zindani is a solicitor and managing director of on-line personal injury specialist Forum Law