The Clementi review of legal services offers an opportunity to work with the government on providing a well-regulated profession, says Peter Williamson in his keynote speech

Where will we be in the autumn of 2010? In 2010, I foresee a new, flexible legal services market.

Perhaps there will be more channels and more choice for obtaining legal services.

I hope that more pricing options might be available depending on the level of service, or the complexity of the advice required.

There would be clearer information about what legal services cost.

Going to see a solicitor - at a large outlet, or a high street firm, or a local partnership of estate agents, solicitors and financial advisers - would seem a far less daunting prospect.

And the consumer protections for the public would be the same wherever they obtain their legal services.

In 2010, I envisage arrangements for dealing with consumer complaints which are working well and have the right level of lay involvement, transparency and independence.

I foresee the number of complaints about lawyers - be they about bad service, lack of communication, or information about cost - going down.

Maybe by 2010 there will have been radical reform of the delivery of legal aid.

General practitioner-type contracts will have led to fair remuneration for solicitors who do legal aid work.

Legal aid solicitors will feel respected and valued by the government for the work they do in tackling social exclusion.

Gradually, it is becoming possible to give an increasingly high quality service to clients as the bureaucracy imposed by the Legal Services Commission diminishes.

The legal aid budget may still be inadequate, but at least it is being used to better effect.

For the first time in years, the number of people getting publicly funded legal assistance is rising.

I hope that some of the international firms based in the City of London will have formed multinational partnerships.

I hope that in the autumn of 2010, younger solicitors will see burgeoning career opportunities.

Solicitors in niche high street practices will be doing well.

Some might even have franchise arrangements with large commercial businesses.

New profit-sharing arrangements will have enabled firms to invest in technology, effective marketing, and staff training to build highly specialist expertise.

Let us come back to 2003.

I welcome the Clementi review of legal services.

I believe the review will offer many opportunities for the profession.

I hope we can engage with it in a positive and constructive manner.

I note two important points about the Clementi review which I welcome - that it will consider the public interest as well as the consumer interest and that it is about better regulation of an independent profession.

I am absolutely confident that the Law Society will be able to demonstrate the value of having profession-led regulation, so that the profession takes respons-ibility for setting the standards and for regulating legal services provided by solicitors.

We will argue that an independent legal profession is vitally important in a democratic society.

And we will fight to the end to retain important principles, such as the duty to put clients' interests first, the duty to serve the administration of justice, the duty to maintain client confidentiality, and the duty to avoid conflicts of interest.

But I believe that does not mean, necessarily, that the structures, the mechanisms, or the governance of regulation have to stay the same.

The Society has much to bring to the review process.

We should seize the opportunity for mature dialogue and work with the government to achieve change that will genuinely benefit both consumers and the legal system.

So, as president of the Society, I would like to send a clear message to David Clementi and to the secretary of state, Lord Falconer: do not expect the Society simply to defend the status quo - prepare to be very surprised about how open minded the Society is to change.

Legal services can be perfectly regulated, but if they are available only to the privileged then that does not add up to a just and fair society.

The scope of legal aid has narrowed.

Eligibility has tightened.

And, the most important fact of all - sadly - is that the number of people obtaining civil advice and representation is going down.

Fewer people being helped, not more.

Current spending on legal aid is approximately 2 billion each year.

This is a tiny fraction of the current spending on education which is 50 billion and the National Health Service which costs 75 billion.

An increasing amount of this budget is going on criminal legal aid, leaving less and less for other areas of need.

There is a better way.

Funding of criminal legal aid should become part of the overall budget for criminal justice allocated by the Treasury.

The effect of any new proposals on the demand for legal aid must be built into the impact assessments of policy changes.

And there needs to be a new system of funding for criminal legal aid to take account of fluctuation in demand.

The civil legal aid budget, meanwhile, needs to be separated from the budget for criminal legal aid.

A key feature of a newly-reformed legal aid system must be fair remuneration for the people who work within it - the suppliers - who are mostly solicitors.

This is not a whinge about pay.

Here is a simple fact: in the past ten years the average cost of running a solicitor's practice rose by 67.5%.

In the same period, rates for legal aid rose by only 26%.

More and more firms cannot make ends meet doing legal aid work.

And so they are making the business decision to give up their contracts with the Community Legal Service - in many cases very reluctantly because they know they are leaving a gap.

The piece-work model of payment is not the only way of paying legal aid firms.

There are a number of different potential models.

For example, new general medical services contracts are due to be introduced for GPs in 2004.

GPs will receive funding for premises, for quality assurance, and for general services including out-of-hours work.

A minimum practice income is guaranteed.

The benefits are that GPs will know in advance the budget that will be allocated to them and they can plan with certainty.

There are incentives for GPs to operate efficiently and well.

The Society has campaigned for a long time for improvements to the system for selecting judges.

No one disputes that our judges are appointed on merit and are of a very high calibre that is admired around the world.

But they are drawn from a very narrow group of candidates.

There are large pools of untapped talent in the legal profession, particularly among candidates of minority ethnic origin, disabled candidates, and more generally women and solicitor applicants.

Some of the current features of the appointments system, such as over-reliance on consultation, are simply indefensible on equal opportunities grounds.

The establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission will not necessarily remove the inequities in the current appointments process.

We need a wholly new system of appointment and a new culture surrounding the process.

This is why I believe that the commission should have an even balance of lay and legal members, and have a lay chairperson.

All members of the commission should be appointed following open competition under the Nolan principles.

It is right that the appointment of judges should be independent of the executive.

However, this means that the appointment of the commission itself must be independent.

I also welcome the proposals for a supreme court for the UK since I believe in the principle that the judiciary should be independent of the legislature.

We will argue in favour of models which allow for very little politics in the selection of judges.

However, the judiciary is an important arm of the state.

Therefore, I believe there should be a high level of democratic accountability for the new institutions through Parliament.

We will suggest, for example, that the Judicial Appointments Commission makes an annual report to Parliament and is subject to scrutiny by the House of Commons Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

The Society remains deeply concerned about certain aspects of the proposed criminal justice reforms.

Proposals such as routinely admitting evidence of previous convictions, extending detention times to 36 hours for ordinary offences, the removal of the presumption of a right to bail, and the abolition of juries in complex cases or where there is thought to be a danger of jury tampering, are not in the public interest.

The best way of tackling crime is through more resources for the police, for the Crown Prosecution Service and, indeed, for criminal defence lawyers.

Making the system less fair may save money - but at what cost to society and justice at large?

Similar concerns about the arrangements for the trial of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay inspired me to instigate a joint letter of protest from the leaders of major Law Societies and Bar Associations throughout the world.

The letter has gone to attorneys-general and justice ministers of the major nations.

The message in the letter was simple and clear.

There are only two legally acceptable courses of action open to the US authorities.

Either the US government must return the detainees to their own home countries, where they can be tried, if appropriate, under their own national laws, or try them in a US civilian court with full guarantees of a fair trial, as US citizens have already enjoyed.

We should all be very proud of the fact that the City of London is a leading international legal centre.

But it is essential that the government supports measures to maintain this pole position, in building the legal services market of the future.

For example, there is a pressing need for a new commercial court in London.

The court is lagging behind the needs of the business community at home and internationally.

The key problem is lack of dedicated facilities and the danger is that the court will lose out to international competitors.

The Lord Chancellor announced in March 2001 plans to enhance the commercial court with modern IT and video-conferencing facilities and to examine the potential to house the court in a single, dedicated building.

However, financing remains uncertain.

The Society works hard to ensure that the profession in England and Wales stays pre-eminent and continues to expand its global reach.

The Society has been playing an active role in the GATS negotiations since they began in 2001.

Most of the requests from the EU to be able to provide legal services in countries outside the EU were originated by the Society.

Our goal is to open practice rights for English and Welsh solicitors across the globe.

This is for two reasons.

First, it helps the development of the legal services market at home and its contribution to the economy.

Secondly, it can also help the economies of the host nations, particularly those of developing countries.

All solicitors in England and Wales, must increasingly have regard to the EU and the significance of European law on all aspects of the advice they give to clients.

A solicitor who does not pay due regard to the European dimension is not giving full advice to his or her clients.

The need for newly qualified solicitors to have a thorough grounding in EU law is one of the many reasons why I welcome the progress the Society is making on the review of education and training for solicitors.

The new training framework will focus on the essential core skills that a person needs to possess to a very high standard upon qualifying as a solicitor.

One of the most encouraging features will be the emphasis on lifelong learning and develop-ment.

I am confident that a new, more flexible, and more effective framework will be in place by 2006.

There are, however, many people of talent who would make outstanding solicitors but who have to struggle to overcome personal barriers to entering the profession.

This may be because of disability, or social, educational, financial or family circumstances.

I am delighted that the Society has developed a diversity access scheme which will offer help in three ways.

It will open opportunities for students to obtain relevant work experience.

It will provide solicitor mentors for students who do not have any legal contacts.

And there will be a number of scholarships to fund students through their professional courses.

Being a solicitor is demanding, and solicitors face many challenges, stresses and pressures in the course of their professional lives.

I want to say to any solicitor who is under pressure - please use our confidential support services.

There is absolutely no shame in admitting a problem.

The real shame would be to struggle on, causing personal distress and possibly impairing the service to your clients.

Research by the Society indicates that more than half of the solicitors surveyed - 56% - had conducted pro bono work in the past year.

Solicitors in private practice gave on average 62 hours.

I am delighted that the protocol, initiated originally by the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, is achieving widespread support and I look forward to putting it before the Council of the Society for adoption in the near future.

I also look forward to Pro Bono week 2004 when the Society will join our partners in the pro bono movement in celebrating the great work that is being done.

I have the privilege of being president at a challenging time for the solicitors' profession and the Society.

I am crystal clear about what the outcomes of our current work should be for the future - an independent, high quality, ethical profession that delivers well to all our communities.

A well-regulated profession with the right level of lay involvement in standards setting, monitoring and compliance.

A thriving profession, making an even more substantial contribution to the economy of England and Wales.

This is an edited version of the speech given by Law Society President Peter Williamson.

A full version can be found on the Law Society's Web site.

Visit: www.lawsociety.org.uk/dcs/ pdf/president_speech_250903.pdf