Chalk walks the walk

Thirteen years ago lord chancellor and justice secretary Kenneth Clarke turned up to the Law Society’s annual summer party.

Even then our justice system was no beneficiary of government largesse, but the one-time Big Beast worked the room in his characteristically genial way. Clarke was happy to break bread – or canapés – with everyone.

I recall this to note that Clarke’s many successors have been much less inclined to appear unchaperoned before a querulous cross-section of lawyers. In the last decade or so, collegiality has become another casualty of populism at Westminster.

Credit where it is due, then, to Alex Chalk KC MP. For a lord chancellor and justice secretary to attend the London Legal Walk (see Gallery) is a vanishingly rare event.

That Chalk should walk to help raise money for legal advice services which party colleagues have slashed so enthusiastically was bound to attract the odd barb. But let us not quibble. The lord chancellor’s attendance was most welcome and marks another stark contrast from the openly hostile mien of predecessor Dominic Raab.

The Gazette can’t let this year’s walk pass either without recording that the event must have been the biggest gathering of lawyers anywhere, ever. I don’t know of any others that have attracted 16,000 or more. LLW, and the party that follows, have become the legal profession’s Glastonbury and the Gazette is proud to be media supporter. (That said, I do wonder what all the tourists queueing up for The Lion King and Tina the Musical make of it.)

Elsewhere today (p18), the Gazette dwells on the troubling conjunction of factors that is rapidly destabilising the working lives of residential conveyancers. One is the impact of ‘Amazonisation’ – the ‘instant culture’ that means uncomprehending clients do not understand or appreciate due process. That is only exacerbated by dire backlogs, a regulatory pile-on and swingeing PII premiums.

One obvious corrective is higher fees – but how can traditional firms raise fees when ‘factories’ will lowball? I can’t recall a solicitor ever before going so far as to describe conveyancing as ‘frightening’. Yet there will be many who do not consider this alarmist.