The retirement of a swathe of practitioners in the near future could affect the ability of the solicitors' profession to handle private client work, the chairman of the Law Society's probate section has warned.


Speaking at its annual conference last week, Adrian O'Loughlin said the section's membership is, on the whole, older than the average for the profession.



'In the next five years and beyond, we will see the retirement of older solicitors, and unless we encourage others into this area, our ability collectively as a profession to service private client work will decline, allowing our competitors to progressively take over our traditional areas of expertise and excellence,' he said.



Mr O'Loughlin, a partner at Surrey firm TWM Solicitors, said the section would pursue a number of initiatives to address this.



The first will see it reach out to law students as early as possible to interest them in private client work and encourage law school students to follow private client electives. The section has already begun work on a training contract handbook to help firms recruit trainees and provide students with information about which practices offer private client seats.



The section will also seek to help solicitors wishing to transfer to private client work from other disciplines, as well as those returning to work.



Mr O'Loughlin meanwhile told the Gazette that private client lawyers remain deeply concerned at the lack of regulation of will-writers.



Giving the keynote speech, Law Society Deputy-Vice President Paul Marsh said Chancery Lane had tried to persuade the government to tackle the issue in the Legal Services Bill.



'There was quite a lot of cross-party support for putting in some form of regime,' he said, adding that the Society would continue to press for change.



Reviewing the section's first ten years, Mr O'Loughlin highlighted its journal, winter seminar programme and website as key achievements. He also pointed to high-level communication with the likes of Revenue & Customs, the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Protection.



Philip Hoult