Senior local law society officers will meet at their annual conference this week amid an air of change and uncertainty affecting the profession as a whole and the solicitors ' national body.

If nothing else, the recent election of Martin Mears and Robert Sayer to the top offices at Chancery Lane has focused attention on grassroots opinion that the presidents and secretaries are supposed to represent.Mr Mears and Mr Sayer strode to a convincing victory on a platform which promised to tame Law Society bureaucracy and produce tangible results to make the lives of high street solicitors more comfortable.

Adding some spice to the local law society meeting is the release this week of the final report of the Partnership Commission (see below).

Launched at the beginning of the year in the pre-Mears/Sayer era, the commission was instructed by the Society's Council to study the structure of the local law society network and ways of improving Chancery Lane communication with the 125 local organisations.In the run-up to the presidents and secretaries annual meeting in Birmingham -- and the solicitors national conference which follows -- the mood amongst the delegates was one of caution.

Indeed, presidents and secretaries appeared to be waiting for the dust to settle at Chancery Lane.'I would like to emerge from the three days with a clearer understanding than I have of how the Society's elected officers, Council and staff are going to work together in harmony and to the benefit of the profession,' said Liverpool president Tony Twemlow.

Apathy has always been the bane of local law societies and the forthcoming conference provides a good illustration.

According to the organisers only a few more than half of the 420-odd eligible delegates will turn up at Birmingham.

When they do, they will tackle two main subjects: an analysis of the Partnership Commission report and a look at the future of complaints handling throughout the profession.Indeed, the latter is an issue which the host law society -- Birmingham -- rates as highly important.

President Bill Heaslegrove explains: 'If the role of local law societies in complaints handling is to be increased, the issue of funding will have to be addressed much more seriously.'Birmingham Law Society runs a well established local complaints procedure which deals with up to 350 incidents a year.

But Mr Heaslegrove is concerned that any widening of the complaints brief could lead to varying standards of adjudication.For City of London Law Society President Stuart Beare, there are three main issues for his members: cost and delay in civil litigation, recruitment into the profession and the job specification of Chancery Lane's new Secretary-General.Understandably, the first is far and away the most important concern in the Square Mile.

The 'starting point' for reducing cost, delays and complexities in civil litigation, maintains Mr Beare, is the Woolf report.

South of the river, the new president of the South London Law Society, Alf Winter, reflected on the difficulties of keeping a local group operating in an area of small high street practices.

'Most people involved in the local law society at committee level also have busy practices.

And they are running the society part time and with no administrative support.'GRASSROOTS VIEWLocal Law societies could soon be pitching for national lottery-style grants from Chancery Lane to launch special projects, if the authors of the Partnership Commission report have their way.John Aucott, the Society Council member who chaired the commission, says local societies would be encouraged to bid for a share of a pool of funds.

To qualify, the societies would have to submit plans for a useful project -- such as newsletters -- an d agree to meet half the costs.'It would be a bit like the national lottery,' maintains Mr Aucott.

'There would be an appeals committee and a grants committee.' Mr Aucott says that ideally he would like to see the total grant pool set at between £100,000 and £150,000.But Mr Aucott and his commission are under no illusions that getting that level of funding from the Council would be simple.

It is far more likely that a grant scheme will b run on a much reduced budget.

The commission in its report released to the Gazette this week has also backed away from any controversional proposal to merge smaller local societies.

However, the commission envisages some scope for greater co-operation between societies to share resources.

And to oversee inter-Society relations, Mr Aucott envisages a Chancery Lane-based 'local law society co-ordinator'.

In general, the Partnership Commission delivers a diagnosis of relative health for local law societies -- although it acknowledges that there are patches causing concern.

Overall, slightly less than 45% of practising solicitors belong to their local law society.

Practitioners in private practice are marginaly keener, with 51% of them being members.To beef up recruitment, local secretaries should be given a list of all newly admitted solicitors in their areas.

They should also get a copy of Chancery Lane's list of all solicitors working within their catchment area.The commission is keen to see greater communication between local societies and the Solicitors Complaints Bureau.Mr Aucott's team would like the bureau to provide publicity pomoting local conciliation and practice rule 15 which could then be given to advice agencies.