Clean sweep at Chancery Lane

The new Law Society office holders take over a bulging in-tray of major issues affecting the society and profession as a whole.

Neil Rose asks them where they start

Michael NapierMichael Napier is a man for firsts: the first member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the first solicitor-advocate to appear before the European Court of Human Rights being the best known.

But his election last week as Law Society President creates a more unlikely first.Back in mid-April, he was Deputy Vice-President.

Then, with the resignation of Kamlesh Bahl, he rose to Vice-President.

And now he has moved up a further notch, becoming the first man to hold all three offices in the space of three months.This year's election was make or break for the senior partner of 75-partner Sheffield firm Irwin Mitchell.

Having unsuccessfully stood for president in 1998, it is unlikely that Mr Napier's ambitions could have weathered another defeat.

On that occasion, he had tried to vault into the top job; having not made it, albeit it narrowly, the following year he won election to the deputy vice-president post and began the traditional path to the presidency.So Robert Sayer's decision to stand for what would have been an unprecedented second term as president gave Mr Napier a difficult decision to make: did he force an election and risk losing, or go ahead with a year as Vice-President as usual, hoping to ascend to the top job, trouble-free, 12 months later.Mr Napier says the decision to run shows that he did not put his personal interests first.

'It took a lot of courage,' he insists, saying that he had to persuade his family and partners that it was worth fighting a third election in as many years.

The pressure to stand came from within the Law Society and without.

'Council members asked me to put my head over the parapet knowing the risks that I could have it chopped off...

The general mood of the profession [from his trips around the country as Deputy Vice-President] was that I should stand.'But, Mr Sayer's charge that Mr Napier was the establishment candidate clearly irritates the new president.

'If you're on Council for more than a few years, then you're automatically seen as an establishment man,' he says.

'I am anything but an automatic defender of the establishment.

My history as a practitioner is fighting for the underdog.'As a claimant personal injury lawyer, this is undoubtedly true.

Mr Napier's career is littered with some of the biggest cases of recent years: Opren, Benzodiazepine, the Herald of Free Enterprise and Piper Alpha to name but four.

With former Law Society President Rodger Pannone, he led Pannone Napier, the firm which pioneered multi-party litigation in the UK.Acting for clients who are down on their luck perhaps makes him perfect for the role of Law Society president; his in-tray from day one is, he agrees, 'huge', from Law Society reform and the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS), to the Office of Fair Trading's investigation into the profession, and the very future of Chancery Lane itself as both a regulator and representative of solicitors.The Law Society is an immediate priority.

For all that internal reform strikes few chords with the profession, he insists it is vital.

His first move as President was to conduct several unprecedented meetings with staff in London and then in Redditch and Leamington Spa in an effort to build morale.

'Recent events haven't promoted partnership between Council and the staff,' he says.

'I have built a firm from 17 people to 1,400 people.

The Law Society is a people business just like a law firm.'On Law Society reform, he says: 'The reform package will be delivered in 12 months.' The package is radical, involving the splitting up of the OSS and the hiving off of consumer complaints to an independent body alongside a Law Society-run standards directorate for other conduct issues, and a clearer distinction between the Society's representative and law reform roles.The Council itself will change - although in what way is not yet clear - but Mr Napier expresses strong support for limiting elections to the Deputy Vice-President post and using the Council as an electoral college for such votes.

The record low turnout this year (18.6%) reinforces the point that there is no stomach in the profession for further elections, he maintains.On the OSS, he says: 'The priority for me is satisfying the Lord Chancellor that the Law Society will achieve the December target [of reducing the backlog of complaints to 6,000] and convince him and the Legal Services Ombudsman that the work we're doing on client care will achieve the much more important target of reducing complaints at the entry-end.' The profession must wake up to the needs of the consumer culture, he warns.Morale is not just an issue within the Law Society but in the profession as a whole.

The goal, he says, it to reach the point where 'people don't have to defend the fact that they're a solicitor at dinner parties'.

And nobody will be better placed to gauge this than Mr Napier.

For whatever else happens during a year as president, the ceremonial role means one thing is sure: there are an awful lot of dinners to attend.

David McIntoshIn 1996, The Times' Diary ran the rule over 'high society' to see how it had been influenced by the growth of the meritocracy.

Among the five solicitors whose fortunes it said were waxing were Michael Napier and David McIntosh.

It is a combination that has since become even better known.The pair got to know each other some years ago during the Opren litigation, when they acted on opposite sides.

Mr McIntosh, senior partner of City-based defendant insurer firm Davies Arnold Cooper and now Law Society Vice-President, says: 'Our relationship is based on an ability to fight our respective corners without any personal acrimony.

It burgeoned into mutual respect and friendship.'The double-act first came to public attention in 1998, when they stood on a ticket for president and vice-president, and both lost.

Last year, when Mr Napier stood for Deputy Vice-President, Mr McIntosh contented himself with a place on the interim executive committee, but when the deputy job became available earlier this year following the resignation of Kamlesh Bahl and elevation of Mr Napier, he beat off seven fellow Council members for the post.

He then convincingly beat Tony Bogan last week for the vice-presidency.Mr McIntosh is anxious to remain in Mr Napier's shadow during the next 12 months, supporting him strongly and leading the key executive committee.

He is a man, after all, who knows all about loyalty, having been with the same firm all his career.

He became senior partner in 1978, at the age of just 34, and helped grow what began as a two-partner practice into one that now has 41 partners and 350 staff.Mr McIntosh deflects talk of next year and the likelihood of becoming president himself for fear of seeming presumptuous.

Nonetheless, he concedes that the tasks facing the new office holders 'can't all be done in a year'.

It helps that the new team speaks to a good mix of constituencies, he says: he to the disaffected City, Mr Napier to legal aid and personal injury practitioners, while Carolyn Kirby has strong links with local law societies.

Another key ingredient will be an 'effective and empowered' chief executive - the new, more powerful head of staff post currently being filled.

Such a person would mean that 'the office holders aren't distracted by crisis management when they should be proactive' in tackling the issues facing the profession, he says.

There is no disguising the size of the task before them.

'We can't achieve as much as one could hope for in Utopia, but considerably more can be achieved by a team approach.

In the last few years, people have been pulling against each other.' But things could be worse.

As a teenager growing up in Frome, Somerset, Mr McIntosh was a keen footballer and caught the eye of professional clubs before his knee broke down.

But for that, his career could have taken a very different turn yet still landed him with the task of turning around an ailing organisation.

Then again, Mr McIntosh notes: 'Being England manager is an even more difficult job.'

Carolyn KirbyThe possibility of becoming the first woman president of the Law Society clearly causes Carolyn Kirby some difficulties.It is not just that the new Deputy Vice-President does not want to be presumptuous, but also that she can foresee two years of fielding questions about it.But, the chances of it happening have to be good.

The turnout at this year's election continued the downward slide since elections began in 1995 and confirmed that there is little appetite in the profession for another one next year.

But Ms Kirby says that being the first woman president should be as significant as being the first president with size six feet.

'If it happened, I would be very proud', is the most she will say on the subject.Ms Kirby - whose main legal role since leaving private practice in 1998 is as chairman of the Mental Health Review Tribunal - won a three-way election for the post.

She takes office as very much the new kid on the block, having only joined the Society's ruling Council last year.

Her views, as a result, are somewhat cautious while she gets a feel for how the Society operates.In that time though, Ms Kirby has built up a healthy respect for the Council and many of its members.

That does not mean the Council should not be reformed, but she does not see the need for radical restructuring.

A particular concern is maintaining a geographical link between the Council and its members - hardly a surprise for a mainstay of the local law society circuit.

Ms Kirby has been secretary of Swansea Law Society since 1986.Few people involved in the Law Society can have any illusions about how it is perceived in the profession and Ms Kirby is keen to stress that it cannot be turned around in a single presidential year.

'I come away from this idea of a 12-month agenda.

It doesn't work.

Everything we're doing here is long-term.'Key to changing perceptions is publicising the Society's achievements, she maintains.

'The Law Society has obviously got things wrong in the past, but one of the reasons the profession holds it in such low esteem is because they're not aware of what it does on their behalf.

For example, there are a whole lot of law reform initiatives generated here which the profession don't know about but benefit both them and their clients.'And another thing that the profession does not know is that as well as becoming the first woman president, if she makes it, Ms Kirby will be only the second Welsh president.