The appointment last week of three new lay members to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors' (OSS) compliance and supervision committee opens a new era of participation by members of the public -- chosen by open competition -- in ruling on allegations of professional misconduct.Manjot Dhanjal, Valerie Moore and Philip Davis were selected from more than 400 applicants for the positions of lay member, advertised for the first time in March in national newspapers and the Gazette.While the OSS, and its much-criticised predecessor the Solicitors Complaints Bureau, has included lay members on this key committee (formerly the adjudication and appeals committee) for more than 10 years, these have always been chosen by the Law Society from a list of nominees for public appointments held by the Cabinet Office.According to Paul Pharaoh, chair of the compliance and supervision committee, advertising the posts was a reform aimed at making the membership of this key organ of self-regulation more transparent.

Mr Pharaoh says the advertisement brought forward candidates of 'high calibre.

Both in its scale and openness, this process has been far better than relying on the Cabinet Office list'.The independence of the appointment procedure is underscored by the fact that the successful candidates have been chosen by the Master of the Rolls.

The new lay members will have two key functions.

Most obviously, they will sit on the two panels that hear disciplinary cases involving allegations of either serious professional misconduct or of failure to meet adequate standards of service to clients.

But crucially they will take part in the meetings of the full compliance and supervision committee, which sets the policy of the OSS.

As an OSS publicity leaflet says: 'The lay members are at the heart of policy making, planning and decisions about the organisation.' They will therefore have a significant influence on the future of self-regulation at a time when it is receiving intense interest from government and others outside the profession.It is concern over the potentially self-interested nature of self-regulation that appears to have attracted the new lay members.

Ms Dhanjal, senior urban policy officer at Birmingham city council, says part of her motivation for applying to the OSS was her wish 'to respond to the legal profession's efforts to make its self-regulatory processes more transparent'.As a law graduate Ms Dhanjal is well aware of the fierce arguments about the way the profession handles complaints.

A seasoned defender of public rights, much of Ms Dhanjal's local government career has been dedicated to equal opportunities, and in her spare time she is chairwoman of a Wolverhampton organisation that aims to help Asian women gain access to facilities and benefits to which they are entitled.Ms Dhanjal hopes to bring 'an idea of the wider views of the public, a different persp ective from that of a working solicitor' to OSS discussions.Ms Moore has equally strong credentials as a champion of consumer rights.

She recently set up her own management consultancy company, and for 14 years prior to that she was a senior executive and later a director of finance and resources at the National Consumers Council (NCC).

As such, she is familiar with NCC research into customer satisfaction with solicitors' work.In March, Ms Moore was appointed as a magistrate, and her husband recently qualified as a solicitor.

As a result, she is aware that the pressures solicitors face can make it difficult to give the best service to every client.

'Solicitors work under high pressure to back-breaking deadlines.

It is important for the OSS to understand those pressures.' In Ms Moore's view, the public's interest lies in having a credible means of complaining.

She says the experience of the NCC shows 'the same principles apply to complaints systems, whether it is about cornflakes or conveyancing: they have to inspire the confidence of the consumer and there must be a simple procedure.'The third new member, Mr Davis, is a legal/industrial injuries officer in the West Midlands for Britain's general union, the GMB.

Here he oversees the work of solicitors who advise union members on personal injury, employment and other issues.

Mr Davis says this experience has made him aware that the quality of work is not uniform.Mr Davis seeks the OSS's purpose as 'to make sure solicitors' service to the public is top-notch'.

He says: 'I am conscious that the public's view of the legal profession is not very positive, to put it no more strongly.

The average person is a bit nervous of lawyers, and the legal system is unfamiliar to them.' Mr Davis says the role of the lay members should be 'to inject a bit of the ordinary person's perspective into judgements on the work of solicitors'.

However, he also sees a need to be sympathetic to the pressures solicitors are under.For the OSS, the first mark of the success of its new approach is that lay people have been impressed enough to apply to join the committee.

But as Mr Pharaoh says, the real test is whether the OSS can rapidly 'improve the credibility and reputation of self-regulation'.