Plans to reduce the size of the Law Society Council look to have been killed off following a members’ vote last week.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson predicted it will now be ‘some time’ before any future decision is made on the Council’s size and structure.

Members were asked to choose between retaining the current 100 seats or reducing the number to 85 or 75. The 85-seat option was rejected in the first round of voting; in the second round, 57% of the votes were for no change.

Members were critical of cutting the size without discussions on which type of seats – geographical or non-geographical – should go.

Mike Williams, civil litigation representative, told the meeting: ‘The easy way is to get rid of specialist seats and come back to the geographical seats later.

‘It is an absurd way of dealing with things,’ he said.

After the meeting, Hudson urged the council membership committee (CMC) to ‘reflect’ on the decision before deciding whether and how to revisit the issue. ‘What function do we want council to address? Do we need a small business-minded board or is it right to say the democratic role is paramount?’

In a separate move, Council has transferred responsibility for alternative dispute resolution to the civil litigation committee and created an ADR seat on the family law committee.