A year of reform

Janet Paraskeva tells Jonathan Ames of her impressions during her first year as Chief Executive of the Law Society

Janet Paraskeva's arrival as chief executive of the Law Society 12 months ago came at a crucial time in the governing body's 176-year history.

It found itself under increased scrutiny from all interested parties - solicitors, government and the public.As the Law Society's 'top civil servant', Ms Paraskeva has experienced a hectic year dealing with that spotlight, during which, in conjunction with the Society's ruling council, she has laid the groundwork for a significant change of approach.

The council has been expanded, with the aim of making it more representative of the wider practising profession, and lay members have been included for the first time.

There has also been innovation at the next tier down, the policy-implementation level, with the creation of a main board and five subsidiary boards, some of which also include lay members sitting side by side with solicitors.Likewise, Ms Paraskeva has remodelled the bureaucracy itself, streamlining internal directorates and putting in place a 're-engineering' plan designed to sharpen the services provided by the Society to both practitioners and the public.

Has your view of the Law Society developed and changed over the past year?I knew very little about the Society 12 months ago - only what was available on the Web site and what I had read in the newspapers.

One of the things I did know, of course - something which has certainly been reinforced during this year - is not to believe all that you read.

It rarely tells the whole story.

What hasn't changed is my belief that we really can bring about an efficient Society, working as a modern regulator for the profession, championing reforms of law appropriately, and representing the interests of solicitors in the public interest.

I think the progress that we are beginning to make demonstrates that we have taken important steps in that direction.

Before you became chief executive, you would have had an impression of the solicitors' profession and of lawyers in general.

Has that view altered during the last year?I don't think my impression of the solicitors' profession or of lawyers in general has changed very much.

I used to see solicitors in court representing clients, many of whom hadn't even been aware before their interview with the duty solicitor that they were entitled to such representation.

I am now working for a Society which is trying to make sure those solicitors are paid properly for their services in order that they can continue to deliver access to justice to all.

You have been instrumental in bringing forward and implementing a package of corporate governance reforms for the Law Society.

Are you pleased with the progress, and what remains to be done?It was actually the council that made decisions on reforms.

My task was simply to make sure that support was available for the timetable that was needed and that systems were in place for the necessary elections and recruitment of lay members.

So I am pleased with progress, yes.Despite attempts to derail the timetable we managed to achieve all of the reforms agreed by council within the last presidential year - the year in which Michael Napier led the Society - and that has meant that we now face a real prospect of continuity in the office holder team with the deputy vice-president elected every year by the broader and more representative council.

But as well as implementing the package of corporate governance reforms, we have also reorganised the staff teams to reflect that structure and we have begun important re-engineering of our systems, bringing about a much more customer-focused approach to all of our work and the systems that support that work.

What now needs to be done is to make the new structures efficient and workable and to demonstrate to the wider council and to the profession as a whole that the Society now has modern governance structures in place - structures which will set the policy and monitor the outcomes of that policy.

We have established a corporate planning scheme to bring to the council a three-year corporate plan with much longer-term financial planning.

During the year of David McIntosh's presidency, I believe we will be able to bring some stability and security to the Society.

What benefits are to be derived from a larger council and lay membership?Lay members bring a different perspective to solicitor members and will be an important voice in the council.

It is a larger council and more representative of the different aspects of work in which solicitors are involved.

But having the customer or client involved is vital.

Would you like to see more lay members than the current five?Yes.

Don't let's forget, however, that we also have lay members in our board structure - 25% of the standards board and 50% of the compliance board are lay members, and 50% of the adjudication panel are also lay members.

Is it fair to say that in the past the Society's council has not been as representative of the wider profession as it could or should have been? If so, why was that the case, and what problems, if any, were caused by that lack of representation?Yes, I think it would, and simply because geography was the main determinant of council membership.

What that meant, of course, was that no special attention was given to different kinds of work undertaken by solicitors or their specific needs in a developing market economy.

Nor was any focus given in relation to equal opportunities and diversity, at least not in any way that made a significant difference.

Women were outnumbered on the council 55 to 18 and there was only one representative from an ethnic minority community.

What I think this meant was that many members of the profession looked at the make-up of council and wondered whether such a council could actually represent them.

One of the main principles behind the Law Society is its dual role as a regulator and representative body.

Is this still a viable concept in an increasingly consumer-orientated and campaigning culture.

What are the benefits to the profession of having a joint governing-representative body?I actually do believe that both of these roles can be carried out, indeed should be carried out, by the same body.

Any modern regulator needs to make sure that it is regulating in the public interest.

Any representative body claiming to offer services to the public needs to represent its interests for the public good.

Surely no professional would want their own organisation to represent falling standards or solicitors who behave badly.

They might want their association to offer support to those solicitors who have fallen foul of their own rules, but offering support does not contradict the regulatory role.

The dual nature is still a viable concept.

We are a more consumer-orientated and campaigning culture, and we need to ensure that our structures allow for both functions.

The privilege of self-regulation is an important one and I believe it benefits the profession.

What is learnt from the role of regulator is vital in the debates the Society needs to have when representing solicitors, as the profession inevitably twists and turns to accommodate social, political, economic and technological changes in the market.

Are you pleased with the progress made by the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) regarding government-set targets? Have the Society and the OSS licked the complaints problem?Significant progress has been made by the Society staff and OSS adjudication panels, and we are exceeding our turnaround targets on a regular basis.

Licking the complaints problem, of course, is not something for the OSS.

It's something for the profession.

The fewer complaints that come to the OSS the better but there can only be fewer complaints if there are more satisfied customers and if solicitors' practices themselves are handling their own complaints in a satisfactory manner.

This must be beginning to happen because the number of complaints coming to the OSS is decreasing and those that are arriving on the desks of our staff in Leamington are for somewhat more complex matters.

Local law societies, too, are helping with an increasing number involved in local conciliation, again helping to prevent formal complaints being made.

But the really exciting news from our complaints-handling procedures is the move to the new assistance unit, an on-line system where enquiries and complaints are dealt with by specially trained staff on the telephone.

They are faster and more effective and customer satisfaction rates, from both solicitors and clients, are high.

Is the increasingly fractured and diverse nature of the solicitors' profession causing problems for the Society's representative function?One of the early activities of the new board has been to consider high-level corporate objectives for the Society for the next three years.

In doing so it has identified the diverse nature of the profession and is setting its objectives to reflect that diversity.

The Society wants to recognise all solicitors whatever their form of practice rather than, as it has done in the past, largely solicitors in private practice.

This could make a difference to the Society's ability to represent the wide range of activities undertaken by different sectors of the profession - and affect it positively.

Do you think the Law Society has a role to play in building a positive public image of solicitors? Of course it has - as far as the public is concerned, the Society and solicitors are inextricably linked.

They are one and the same thing.

What is Chancery Lane doing to enhance that image?What the Society is doing, and what the council has agreed, is a strategic plan which unashamedly says that the goal of the Law Society is 'to promote solicitors as an independent and effectively self-regulated legal profession'.

And the strategic plan goes on to say that 'the Law Society will strive to guarantee access to high-quality legal services to the public, the vigorous promotion of solicitors' interests, and to be a leading voice on the best practice of law and law reform to society'.

If the Society does these things, it will indeed build a positive public image of solicitors and one of the things that we are doing to enhance that image is to demonstrate how, by being a modern model regulator, we are helping the profession to continue to take responsibility for the regulation of its own interests in the interests of the client.

The Blueprint for Change, - published in March - identified ten steps that the Society was taking, steps which it reports on publicly every three months.

What do you think the solicitor on the street would say about the Law Society now, and what would you like that solicitor to say in a year?Increasingly, the positive comments outnumber the negative.

Sometimes people simply say 'the jury is still out'.

But, of course, many solicitors are still less than interested in their professional body.

What I hope is that in a year's time we will have increased the number of solicitors taking an interest in their professional body, an interest in the role we play as their regulator, pleased with the information that we send them, and proud to be part of a Society that represents the interests of an effective and modern profession.