Counterpoint

Law Society postal ballot: you decide

Members are being asked to vote on crucial issues.

Imran Khan and Peter Williamson outline their points of view

Like most of you, Law Society politics have been a complete turn off for me and most of its communications go straight into my bin.

But, recent events have forced me to look more closely at our professional body, how it acts and how it spends our money.

I have been truly shocked.

What I have found is an organisation with little regard for the law.

Little regard for the reputation of solicitors or our hard earned money.

Over the years, disguised as 'reform', it has effectively stripped away the rights of ordinary members.

Most significant is removing our right to elect our own leaders, a right we had for over 150 years.

Today we only have the useless safeguard of 500 members objecting to the election of the deputy vice-president within 14 days of the Council electing him! After that, you and I, as ordinary members have no say in who becomes President.

So, 'Buggins' turn' is now truly enshrined in our constitution with the 'reforms'.

Peter Williamson will, of course, be the next presidential beneficiary of this system.

Most Council members cannot even muster up 500 votes when being elected, so how can an ordinary member do so? Last year the Society suffered a humiliating setback.

Its attempt to increase the number of members required to petition a SGM from 100 to 500 (and later to 250) lost miserably in a postal ballot of the membership.

That is why I urge you to vote for resolution 5 in the current postal ballot to restore democracy.

The Society's record of handling our money is a travesty.

We brace ourselves for the annual hike in PC fees.

Its vast bureaucracy keeps on growing, insulated from market conditions, the tides of recession, downsizing and competition.

This dinosaural monopoly can dip directly into our pockets whenever it likes.

Like the 31% hike in our practising certificate fees in 2001, or the 2.5 million spent on one tribunal case or 800,000 in penalties to a computer supplier for the Society's failure to meet its own deadlines.

It always defends its expenditure because it is self-serving.

Please vote for resolution 7 to make the Society accountable to us.

Finally, the issue of racism.

Equality and diversity are the Society's buzzwords but has anything changed? The Bahl litigation, shameful to ordinary members, continues without resolution, with unlimited indemnities given to those found to have discriminated - again at our expense.

Our President, Carolyn Kirby, has made allegedly racist remarks about Asian managers that are the subject of current complaints to the CRE and the OSS.

She 'regrets' the offence her remarks may have caused but has never apologised.

Today, the Society stands branded as racist and sexist by a court.

According to the Society, all is well and mended.

It used an all-white group to develop a strategy on diversity without any help from ethnic members.

Quite who it consulted is still a mystery.

But even if the Society believes its house is in order, then why fear an independent audit? After all, it would provide a foundation on which to rid itself of its racist label.

I urge you to vote for resolutions 3 and 6.

Imran Khan is senior partner at Imran Khan & Partners, London

No one should doubt the Law Society's commitment to ensuring that all members of our increasingly diverse profession are effectively and fairly represented and have a proper voice in the governance of the Law Society.

An important feature of the governance reforms was the creation of more seats on the Council to represent the various sectors and groups of members as well as geographical constituencies.

Imran Khan, himself, is one of the new members elected to it.

This enlarged Council, itself elected by the profession, now elects the deputy vice-president.

Any member of the Council can seek election and there were five candidates for the first election under the new system.

Council members then voted on the candidates in a secret ballot using proportional representation - hardly Buggins' turn.

It is essentially a move from the American directly elected presidential model to a British parliamentary one.

The profession itself had indicated growing dissatisfaction with annual elections as evidenced by the decline in the proportion of the profession voting.

Many deplored the acrimonious manner in which some of those elections had been conducted, believing it damaged the reputation of the profession.

The 500-vote mechanism provides a safety net for members of the profession to challenge the Council's choice if the Council should get seriously out of step with the profession's views.

The Society is not self-serving.

It exercises important regulatory functions in the public interest and in the interests of everyone practising in our profession.

The practising certificate fee, in accordance with section 47 of the Access to Justice Act, is spent only on regulatory activity and related work that supports achieving and maintaining good standards in the profession.

The Society's representative activity is funded by income-generating activities such as publications and training.

In 1993 the Society's gross expenditure per practising certificate holder was 680, in 2003 it will be 859, an increase of 26.3%, slightly ahead of the increase in the retail price index for the period of 24.9%.

The recent increases in the practising certificate fee have been largely due to the need to continue to invest in dealing effectively with complaints about solicitors and improving monitoring and compliance activities.

Effective regulation is essential to support the integrity and reputation of everyone in the profession.

Real change is taking place at the Law Society.

Two years ago we did not have a comprehensive strategy to develop best practice on equality and diversity; now we do.

It was developed with the input of the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Sir Herman Ouseley, in consultation with groups representing all in the profession.

There are mechanisms in place to measure its implementation and effectiveness.

Two years ago we were not monitoring our staffing profile and human resources procedures; now we are.

Two years ago we were not testing all our policy making and activity against equality and diversity criteria; now it is becoming routine.

It is time to concentrate on moving forward and building on this progress, rather than having backward looking inquiries.

That is why the Council asked solicitors to vote against the resolutions that are currently under postal ballot.

Peter Williamson is Vice-President of the Law Society