Time to speak up

The opportunity is here for members of the profession to have their say on an imminent overhaul of the Law Society, as Janet Paraskeva explains

As we begin to separate the Law Society’s governance and representation roles, we have a unique opportunity to build a new professional services arm for the future Law Society.


We will be consulting widely with the profession through market testing and face-to-face meetings over the next six months.


But it is also revealing to look at the views of the profession that we gathered in our most recent satisfaction survey – and indeed to compare those views with the results of the same survey two years ago.


It would be relatively easy, but a huge mistake, to sit in a back room and design a new structure, uninfluenced by the world around us.


We know that if we really want to create an organisation that delivers what the profession wants, we have to ensure that we know what solicitors value about the Law Society, what their views are of how we meet the different needs that solicitors have today and how we promote their interests.


Any survey of customers – and solicitors are the customers of the Law Society – can be difficult to stomach. But if we don’t listen to what solicitors have been saying, we will diminish our chances of getting it right.


And get it right we must, for this is one of those rare moments when there is an opportunity to make a real change. This is the one chance the profession has to help the Law Society design a really modern professional services body fit for the purpose and fit for the 21st century.


We know from what you have told us that only about one-third of you feel we fully understand your needs. What that probably means is that we are just not meeting them in the activities and services that we provide.


One commonly asked question is, ‘What does the Law Society do for me?’ And something we are learning is that we don’t tell you often enough what we are doing for you on your behalf. There are many important achievements that we must ensure we convey to the profession loud and clear.


For example, we have made frequent interventions into cases before the courts where we think the law should be clarified or where we think judgment could have an adverse effect on the public or profession’s interest. In the case of Bowman v Fels, our intervention helped to secure clarification of the money laundering regime; in the Three Rivers case, our intervention helped to protect legal professional privilege. Other interventions have helped to clarify the operation of the conditional fee agreement regime.


Perhaps we have not been voluble enough in letting the profession know that our lobbying helped encourage the government to introduce regulation for claims farmers. And we haven’t said loudly enough that were it not for the Law Society’s lobbying on the Clementi review of legal services, we could well have ended up with a Financial Services Authority-style quango that would have removed self-regulation from the profession.


In the recent satisfaction survey, more than 85% of you said we should be promoting your interests. Almost three-quarters of you were clear that we needed to promote the brand and to promote the public’s interest in legal matters. The PR campaign, ‘My hero my solicitor’, that we commissioned last year and our current campaign on stamp duty land tax are two examples of how we do this. Another campaign we are currently working on is aimed at informing solicitors about the implications of and opportunities provided by home information packs.


But we shouldn’t rubbish the work that we do, or deny the progress that we have made. Two years ago, only 39% of respondents to our satisfaction survey thought the Law Society was doing a good job in regulating the profession. Now more than half of you say that you are satisfied or very satisfied with the way the Society performs its regulatory role.


Moreover, almost half of you have said that you are satisfied or very satisfied with Law Society services overall. Not good enough by far, but a significant increase from the 34% of respondents in the survey in 2002. It is encouraging to see that the trend is positive and we aim to build on it in the process of transition that is now under way.


Perhaps the most interesting statistic is actually the numbers of you who seem indifferent to the work of your professional body. All too often in the satisfaction survey, slightly fewer than half of you gave a ‘neither/nor’ response to a range of questions. This suggests either a lack of knowledge or a lack of interest, or both.


It is the Law Society’s job to tackle a lack of knowledge, but responsibility for indifference is shared with the profession. The representative body of a profession can do a huge amount for its members. The Law Society currently does an enormous range of work that is greatly valued by thousands of solicitors. If those of you who feel indifferent to what the Society does, believe it is because the organisation does not meet your needs, then now is the time to speak up.


Make your voice heard. The Law Society is the representative body for every solicitor in England and Wales. It’s your Law Society. The more solicitors participate, the more influential it can be.