Law Society elections shape up as Napier challenges Sayer

Law Society elections shape up as Napier challenges Sayer

Law Society President Robert Sayer must fight for his unpreced-ented second year in office following Vice-President Michael Napier's declaration this week that he will also run for the top slot.Mr Napier, senior partner at Sheffield-based Irwin Mitchell, will stand on a joint ticket with the Deputy Vice-President David McIntosh, senior partner of City firm Davis Arnold Cooper, who is standing for Vice-President.

The pair also stood in 1998, when they were narrowly defeated.Mr McIntosh was elected to office in April when Mr Napier moved up to fill the gap left after Kamlesh Bahl resigned.Mr McIntosh also faces a contest, as prominent west London conveyancing campaigner Tony Bogan threw his hat in the ring this week.

No candidates have declared for Deputy Vice-President as yet.Mr Sayer said he was 'terribly disappointed' Mr Napier will contest the election 'at this early stage of his career' as an office holder, adding: 'As soon as the Law Society reforms are through, I'll retire; but until that point I have a duty to see it through.'Mr Napier said the Society needs 'new and strong' leadership at the top.

'This is the only way forward for the Law Society, which must urgently reform in order to better represent a much-changed profession, shed itself of its recent problems and present a re-focused and respected image to members and to the public,' he said.Mr McIntosh said he will do 'all he can' to ensure the election produces office holders who have 'trust' in each other, listen to the profession and the Council, and work towards a common goal.Although a strong supporter of Mr Sayer, Mr Bogan said the two are not running together, but he admitted this might change.Fuelling the reform debate was the publication this week of a survey showing that 59% of the profession is behind a formal split of the Law Society's regulatory and representative functions.

Slightly more than one-third (65%) of the 412 respondents want the Society to keep the representative function.The survey was commissioned by the Reform of the Law Society 2000 Group, led by the Milton Keynes and District Law Society.Mr Bogan said he is contesting the Vice-Presidency because the Law Society is on 'completely the wrong course' in planning to retain a regulatory function but drop representation (see [2000] Gazette, 18 May, 5).

Mr Bogan ran for president in 1996 on a ticket of splitting the functions, but received only 4% of the vote.

Sue Allen