Selection: Law Society to tap high street experience for consumer complaints

The chairman of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), a BBC controller and the chief commissioner of the Charity Commission are among the high-profile appointments to two new Law Society boards last week.


The regulation board and the consumer complaints board (CCB) will operate in shadow form, becoming fully operational next January.


Lay regulation board members include SOCA chairman Sir Stephen Lander; Dr Jonathan Spencer, who retired as policy director at the Department for Constitutional Affairs earlier this year; John Stoker from the Charity Commission; and BBC editorial policy controller Stephen Whittle. Solicitor representatives will include Black Solicitors Network chairwoman Yvonne Brown, Pinsent Masons partner Andrew Long, and Stephen Walzer, senior counsel at British American Tobacco.


Ofwat chairwoman Andrea Cook will become a CCB lay member, while Susan Hodkinson, an associate at Bristol firm Kirby Simcox, is the only private practice solicitor to be appointed to that board so far, with another due to be appointed.


But some council members expressed concern over the appointments. Eileen Pembridge, council member for south London, said: 'The appointments [to the CCB] are very good candidates... But the system seems to be skewed towards the public sector, whereas there should be more nexus to the solicitors' profession, and people who know what it is like to receive a complaint.'


Denis Cameron, council member for central Lancashire, said: 'It is not appropriate for the chairman of SOCA to be working for the Law Society on its regulation board. SOCA [will be] one of the top police authorities in the country, and it is taking over the National Criminal Intelligence Service. We need a strong Law Society to stand up to it, and that could be quite difficult with the head of SOCA at the Society.'


Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller said: 'The regulation of the solicitors' profession should be independent of government and any crime enforcement agency, which it is very often in conflict with.'


A Law Society spokesman rejected the criticisms. He said: 'Seven lay members and five solicitors have been appointed to the consumer complaints board. However, as the criteria set by the Society earlier in the year did not include high street experience, the council has decided to create one new position on the board for a solicitor with experience of high street practice.


'There is no conflict involving the appointment of Sir Stephen Lander and Dr Jonathan Spencer to the regulation board. They will not be representing the views of any organisation or government department. All appointments were made according to Nolan principles with independent oversight by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and the agreement of the Master of the Rolls, and were confirmed by council last week.'