For all that the message will stay the same as David McIntosh succeeds Michael Napier as Law Society President, the style will undoubtedly change.Mr McIntosh is arguably a more extrovert character than his close ally and is the blunter of the two, at least in public, notwithstanding Mr Napier's Yorkshire roots.

But as he showed very visibly when he took office at the annual general meeting last week, Mr McIntosh has an emotional side too.He takes office at what he calls 'the best of times'.

He explains: 'I take over with a very considerable reform process completed and in place, and with the goodwill Michael Napier has engendered right across the profession and with the stakeholders.'Describing Mr Napier as 'the most successful presiden t for some considerable time', the 57-year-old senior partner of City law firm Davies Arnold Cooper maintains that the Law Society is in 'far better shape than it was a year ago, capable for the first time in years to go on to the front foot in everything it does.

A Society that can give voice to the 85,000 solicitors it represents proactively with regard to law reform and fighting for the interests of the profession's clients'.The idea of the Law Society being on the front foot has been voiced in previous years, often with genuine intention, but it was never seen through.

Mr McIntosh puts this down to a lack of corporate governance structures that are now in place with the new board system and enlarged council.

He also expresses his strong determination to 'go forward and not be deflected by the residue of past problems'.But the fact remains -- and this is a problem that has dogged presidents for some years now -- that the Society still has an image problem both within and outside the profession.Through an exhausting schedule of trips around the country as part of the office-holders' 'Reach Out' programme, Mr McIntosh has done his best to persuade solicitors that the Law Society is changing.He recognises that Reach Out, by itself, cannot turn this around.

'But I do hope that a team approach at the top of the Law Society, a shared determination to set best examples in terms of behaviour, and a shared determination to make the Law Society as valuable as possible to all solicitors, will be widely noticed and appreciated.'It is a truism that solicitors in the City of London are apathetic about the Society.

So does it help to have one of their own wearing the badge of office? 'I hope that my background of having been a City solicitor and senior partner of a major litigation practice for many years -- but not, so I'm told, a stereotyped City solicitor -- will help the Law Society in continuing to improve upon a better relationship forged with City practitioners over the past year.

Like Michael Napier, I enjoy the wholehearted support of the City of London Law Society.'But Mr McIntosh knows all too well that the issues facing the profession are varied and challenging for all solicitors.

He highlights criminal contracting, the Office of Fair Trading report on the professions' competitiveness, lender discrimination against sole practitioners, practice rights for firms opening overseas, and improved legal aid rates for family lawyers, and the government's planned criminal justice reforms as being more than enough to keep him occupied.And despite the generally positive report of the Legal Services Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, last week, complaints will continue to loom large on the agenda.

He takes heart from the drop in complaints that the ombudsman has reported: 'The fact that complaints went down by 6% -- not by itself a large figure -- at a time consumer awareness and complaints more generally have tended to rise, strongly suggests that the message is beginning to get through to solicitors who might previously have seen practice rule 15 as a burden and not as an opportunity to improve their services.'The principles underlying the new complaints redress scheme, including 'polluter pays', and the independent lay commissioner, were approved by the Society's council last week and will now go out to consultation with the key stakeholders, such as the government, ombudsman and consumer groups.Without wishing to pre-empt the consultation, Mr McIntosh takes heart from Ms Abraham's strongly expressed wish to see the redress scheme take shape.So could this mean that the government will refrain from using its reserved powers to introduce a legal services complaints commissioner?'The signs insofar as we can read them in comments made by the ombudsman and [Lord Chancellor's Department minister] Rosie Winterton are that the risk, which still exists, of the government imposing the commissioner, will have been reduced by council's vote.

It will also diminish if the Law Society continues to be seen getting on with the business which ought to be its priority.'Continuity and a team approach are arguably the major themes of the current office-holders, and it is to thoughts of Vice-President Carolyn Kirby's inheritance that Mr McIntosh turns when asked what he wants his legacy to be.'I'd like to be able to say that the reputation, standing and influence of the Law Society has been enhanced with proper advantage taken of the foundations laid during Michael Napier's year,' he says.

'I will do my level best to provide Carolyn with the opportunity of moving the Society onwards and forward for the third consecutive year.'