ROBERT SAYERBy now, most of you will have received the candidates' manifestos.

In mine, I have tried to analyse what is wrong with the Law Society and how it may be remedied.

I do not intend to cover the same ground again, but instead want to remind you what this is all about.

It is not a game.

It is not about personal ambition, 'politics' or internal squabbling.

It is a serious battle for the soul of the profession.

Ignore the trivialisation and personal slights you read in the legal press and, to a disappointing degree, in some of the manifestos.

The fundamental question at the heart of the battle over the last six years is: 'Do you want a Law Society which protects its members and looks after their interests or not?' And by 'looking after our interests', I do not mean crude trade unionism.

I mean a responsible, adult organisation which accepts that we are part of the wider community, that we do have duties to the public at large, but that these duties have to be balanced with our own rights as individuals.

Individuals with personal responsibilities to our own families and with the right to be allowed to organise our working lives, within reason, in the way which suits us.

'But the Law Society is irrelevant to me.

Why should I bother?' The Society may appear irrelevant, but it is not.

It sets the rules which govern your entire working life, from training to retirement and everything in between.

By the Society's continuing control of indemnity insurance, whether your firm can afford to stay open.

By the success or failure of its negotiations with government and others, whether your field of work survives or is lost.

It can end or damage your career by the way it handles complaints.

Its behaviour affects the public image of our profession and therefore how our friends and clients perceive us.

Like ill-health or accident, at some stage the Society will directly affect your life.Whether you vote or not decides if that effect is benign or malignant.

Six years ago, I started my campaign to change the Law Society.

The reason was because it seemed to have abandoned whole sections of the profession.

At that time, at the highest levels, some staff and Council members openly said small firms were an embarrassment, had no future and the sooner they shut the better.

And by 'shut', they meant 'go bust'.

Six years ago, the same 'elder statesmen' were openly saying that conveyancing was not real law and that solicitors should stop doing it.The problems with legal aid are not new.

Eight years ago, the Society accepted a zero pay rise for the first time.

The government immediately realised that solicitors would continue to do the work even without a rise.

So the following year they did the same.

Then again.

And again.

The Society showed itself to be weak and we have been suffering the consequences ever since.

It is why, for all the brave words, the fight in respect of franchising has not been successful and until we as a profession do show we have some back-bone, it will continue to be unsuccessful.

Except for the favoured few mega-firms.And there is the problem of balance.

The Society employs 900 staff, 500 of those at the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors.

Fourteen in 'human resources' looking after the staff's interests.

It employs only one person to look after remuneration issues affecting the entire profession.

One person to look after all conveyancing issues.

One person to advise the entire profession on IT.

There are more people maintaining the Law Society's buildings than are involved in looking after the interests of the entire profession.For six years, I have tried to bring in change.

To persuade those in power to put the interests of the profession at the top of the agenda.

To shift resources away from irrelevancies into providing real practical help for members.

They have been turbulent years.

Mainly because the opposition to change has been pretty relentless.

That turbulence could have been ended at any time by my giving up the struggle.

But to do so would have left the profession at the mercy of people who I genuinely think are seriously misguided.

My conscience never allowed me to do that.

It would have been morally wrong.

The word reform is used by everyone, but it means different things to different people.

I believe the Society's primary duty is to represent its members.

If it does not, who else will? As part of that, I believe it makes sense for us to retain control of regulation.

Why give that power to outsiders? I just do not think the present mixed-up way the Society combines those two functions works.

We need to find a better way.

Separate the two functions into separate divisions within the Society and restore a sensible balance.

Both divisions under the democratic control of a Council made up of people who genuinely represent the views of working solicitors.

Michael Napier is the champion of those who want the Society to become a pure regulator.

That is what he means by reform.The present Law Society is out of touch and out of its depth.

We have to radically reform it.

We need new blood.

People whose priority is working to help solicitors.

If you are interested in becoming part of that new structure, let me know.

Robert Sayer is the Council member for central and south Middlesex