Council sets agenda

The retention and development of self-regulation and equality of opportunity across the solicitors' profession will head a draft agenda for next year, it emerged last week as the Law Society's expanded council met for the first time.Other areas focused on were access to justice, the freedom of solicitors to compete in a de-regulated marketplace, the impact of possible fee sharing, and standards on entry to the profession.The larger council, which now includes 16 more solicitors and five lay members, met at a conference in Nottingham where it discussed the overarching themes affecting the Society and the profession.Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva welcomed the advent of lay membership on the council and on two of the subsidiary boards, standards and compliance.

Lay members, said Ms Paraskeva, 'will add significantly to consumer involvement in an agenda for a profession prepared to change the way it works to keep up with economic and technological change'.Meanwhile, a ballot of the solicitors' profession defeated a proposal to reduce the practising certificate fee to no more than 400 for 2002-03 (see [2001] Gazette 19 July, 5).

The motion, which had been proposed at the Society's annual general meeting in the summer, was lost by 9,338 votes to 5,445.Two other proposals were also defeated.

The first, which would have seen the Society cease to investigate inadequate professional service complaints, was lost by 11,434 votes to 3,417.

The second, which would have removed the Society from handling complaints involving allegations of solicitor negligence, lost by a similar margin of 11,083 votes to 3,861.

The motions had been rejected by the Society's council and by a vote at the AGM.