THE LAW SOCIETY'S ACCREDITATION SCHEMES COULD BE RECOGNISED OFFICIALLY AS EQUIVALENT TO A LEGAL AID FRANCHISE, SAYS STEVE ORCHARDThe Legal Aid Board (LAB) has warmly welcomed the Law Society's proposals to create schemes for specialist accreditation which could be recognised by the government and the LAB as an equivalent to a franchise.

Any scheme which shares the values and aims of the board's franchising initiative is to be encouraged.In addition to accrediting the technical competence of individual solicitors, the Law Society intends to accredit, on a voluntary basis, the quality of a firm's management systems when its practice management standards (PMS) accreditation scheme is launched later this year.

The LAB finds this approach encouraging, but it does raise a number of key questions.First, the standard at which individual accreditation is set is very important.

The LAB agrees that the appropriate standard is competence rather than excellence or specialisation.

This would be entirely compatible with the philosophy underpinning franchising.Secondly, the link between individual accreditation and PMS accreditation must be clear.

For example, is it to be a requirement of PMS accreditation that supervisors must be individually accredited where an accreditation scheme exists? What standards must supervisors achieve where there is no accreditation scheme?There are other issues relating specifically to PMS accreditation.

It will be necessary for the Law Society to convert the standards into auditable criteria that can be applied absolutely objectively.

The LAB did that when it created the mandatory requirements in franchising.

The Law Society approach must deliver the same level of assurance.

The arrangements for auditing against the standards must be robust.

We will need to be satisfied that processes are in place to ensure consistency of application of the standards and that non-compliances are properly dealt with.

This is important if there is to be more than one body authorised by the Law Society to carry out auditing.It will also be necessary to consider the place of transaction criteria audits in the Law Society's scheme.The LAB recognises that the Law Society is not convinced of the worth of these criteria as part of a system of quality assurance.

The LAB disagrees and intends to extend coverage of transaction criteria in existing categories of work and, over time, develop them in new areas, such as mental health.

Under government proposals for contracting legal services, it will be necessary for the LAB to carry out contract compliance audits.

File audits could embrace transaction criteria audits as part of that process.

The Law Society may come up with alternatives in the context of its overall accreditation package.None of these potential problems is insurmountable and we at the LAB have offered our experience in franchising to be considered by the Law Society in order that the problems can be addressed effectively.We do not see the Society's initiative as any sort of threat to franchising which we will continue to develop.

Co-operation between us now is likely to lead to a more effective Society scheme and to the development of quality assurance arrangements for the delivery of legal services.IT IS IMPORTANT THAT SPECIALIST PANELS ARE NOT CREATED SOLELY TO COMPETE WITH FRANCHISING, ARGUES GOVERNMENT MINISTER, GARY STREETERTomorrow belongs to the specialist.

For this reason, the government warmly supports the accredited panels of solicitors which have already been established.

It also supports accreditation schemes of the kind agreed between the Law Society and the Legal Aid Board (LAB) in relation to the police station duty solicitor scheme.In the provision of publicly-funded legal services, the LAB has been very much in the forefront in the area of quality with its franchising initiative and the government has supported it.The government recognises that there are other forms of quality assurance which can make a valuable contribution to ensuring that both legally aided people as clients, and taxpayers as funders, receive good value for money.

But there is no reason why LAB franchising and membership of a Law Society specialist panel or accreditation scheme should be mutually exclusive.

In fact, there may well be value in looking to see whether there could be some form of integration or overlap between franchising and such schemes.

In the future one of the criteria which the LAB may consider in an application for a franchise, or for a block contract, would be membership of the appropriate panel.It is important that accredited panels are not created solely to compete with franchising.

They can and should have free-standing value.

The most obvious way in which they could be developed is as a marketing tool.It would seem likely that a potential customer choosing between similar lawyers would opt for, or at least narrow down the choice, to lawyers who were accredited in the relevant area of law.

This is equally true whether the client is legally aided or pays privately.

It is also important that the quality threshold to achieve accreditation is robust enough to exclude those who fall short.Over the next few years the government will be working towards control of expenditure and value for money within the legal aid budget.

As part of the reforms set out in the white paper on legal aid, we will be looking for both more and better services within the existing budgets.

Franchising, specialist panels and accreditation schemes will all have an important role to play.

Those who have subscribed to such initiatives will be able to show their commitment to quality and will be well placed to take advantage of future developments in legal services.

Let us together find new ways of driving standards up and serving clients better.CONSUMER INTEREST DEMANDS THAT THE LAW SOCIETY SHOULD PUT MORE EFFORT INTO MARKETING SPECIALIST PANELS, SAYS MARLENE WINFIELDMany people mistakenly believe that every solicitor is an expert in all areas of the law and solicitors are sometimes a little slow to disabuse them.

Of course, some solicitors are perfectly good generalists and can be instructed in a wide range of cases.

But when a case demands a specialist, prospective clients are often left in the dark about which solicitors have the knowledge and skills they need.Information about specialist solicitors is available in some areas through t he specialist panels.

Unfortunately, many consumers do not know about these panels and what membership of them means.

A system of kite marks would help to inform them, particularly when combined with exercises along the lines of the Law Society's 'make a will week'.

publicising the fact that sometimes it is best to employ a specialist.If panels are the only way consumers have of finding quality-controlled solicitors apart from legal aid franchises, then they need to cover more areas of work.

For example, the National Consumers Council (NCC) is often asked about solicitors who will take on negligence cases against other solicitors.

While we cannot recommend individual solicitors or firms, we could point callers in the direction of a kite mark that identifies those willing to take an independent approach to professional negligence work.A kite mark could be used to improve access to alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Solicitors able to give state-of-the-art advice about alternatives to litigation, or qualified to act as mediators, trained to accompany clients to mediations, or willing to coach people to represent themselves could be identified by an ADR kite mark.A kite mark could be one answer to the freefall of fees in conveyancing.

As long as consumers are unable to distinguish a good conveyancer from a bad one, they will naturally go for the cheapest option.

Purchasing a property is often the most expensive financial transaction made in an individual's lifetime.Many people would pay a little more for the peace of mind of knowing it was being carried out by someone with a proven track record in conveyancing.

There could even be a kite mark for general practice.The Law Society is in an unenviable position.

At a time of increasing specialisation in the profession and greater focus on quality by consumers generally, it should be jumping on the bandwagon with more specialist panels.

But it no doubt feels the pressure from some quarters to spread the work around.

This is yet another instance where the Society's duty to the public and its trade union role work against each other.If the Law Society is reluctant to set standards itself, increasingly others will do it instead.

The initiative in defining a quality legal aid service has already been lost to the LAB.From the outset, the Society has been critical of legal aid franchising standards for practice management and will no doubt be critical of the board's efforts to measure quality of legal work.

But if it's not prepared to do the job itself, it cannot expect much support for its complaint that some other body got it wrong, particularly if clients suffer.Solicitors who genuinely wish to give clients a quality service need to make them aware of what a quality service is, and to give them a simple method of choosing amongst solicitors.

Good solicitors will realise the benefits of kite marks that indicate both experience and a defined standard of quality.

Bad or mediocre ones may take more convincing.

In relation to further specialisation and quality accreditation, the question remains as to where the Law Society will hang its colours.