IBA considers sharper role

The International Bar Association (IBA) is set for the most radical reform in its 55-year history, including formal succession for the leadership and an annual conference.

The proposals have been put forward by a review committee co-chaired by solicitor Francis Neate, group legal adviser at merchant bank Schroders, and Canadian lawyer William Rowley QC.

Committee members included David Moroney, the head of energy at City firm Denton Wilde Sapte.

The report said that despite its success over the years, the IBA in the past decade has faced stagnating membership numbers and rapidly rising operational costs.

'The question of the IBA's relevance to international lawyers in now an issue,' it said.

'The current proposals address this by better positioning the association to assume real leadership on international legal policy issues.'

Under the plans, the existing sections - business law, general practice, and energy and natural resources law - would be scrapped and replaced by two overarching bodies.

The public and professional interest division would manage all professional and pro bono work carried out by the IBA, including its human rights institute.

The legal practice division would take in all the practice area committees and rename them as sections.

The previously free-standing energy section would come under this category.

The IBA would have an annual conference; currently it holds a biennial event and the sections have their own meetings in the intervening year.

Its vice-president would also be its president-elect to ensure continuity in and knowledge of the IBA's work.

Mr Neate said the aim was to bring the IBA's organisation up to date; much of it had 'grown like Topsy', he explained.

While he argued that the reforms have the potential to make the IBA more effective, Mr Neate said he drew back from describing them as essential.

'I don't believe the administrative organisation makes a lot of difference if you don't have good people running it,' he said.

The reforms will be put to the IBA council in Dublin on 1 June.

If approved, constitutional changes would be put to the general meeting at the IBA's biennial conference in October in South Africa.

There would then be a two-year transitional period.

The Law Society's IBA representative, Robin Healey, has made a submission to the council that as part of the reforms it should introduce Chancery Lane-style lay representation into its governance 'to inject into IBA debates the consumer or client viewpoint'.

Neil Rose