Professional pride

Looking after clients' interests is the best possible way to enhance the standing of the profession in the eyes of the public and government, David McIntosh tells the Law Society conference in his key-note speech

Like many of you, I am from a modest background.

I have had to adapt to change throughout my professional life.

I went to a secondary modern school in Frome in Somerset.

At 16 I had to leave school with my six 0 levels, because my mother couldn't afford to let me stay on.

I started as a junior clerk in a local law firm, still called Ames Kent.

Back then it was a two-partner firm.

I sat in a narrow office, lit by gas, in a converted stable.

And they gave me a modern, state-of-the-art piece of equipment - a manual typewriter.But it did not take me long to realise that I had picked on something important and worthwhile to do.

My first client was a victim of British Rail.

She had been turned off a train in Westbury in Wiltshire, six miles from its proper destination.

When she came to see me she brought with her the standard letter which she had received.

It opened with dear 'Sir or Madam' with the 'Sir' only half deleted.

It apologised for the train journey being interrupted at blank with Westbury written into that blank.

Then it listed six alternative reasons with all of them crossed out except 'mechanical breakdown'.

My client then suggested I look at the other side of the letter.

On the back was a scrawled, hand-written note saying: 'Send the old bag the usual.' With that sort of ammunition, I got her a proper apology and some free travel on top.

This early experience taught me two lessons.

One was always to look at both sides of everything.

And the second thing was how to - and how not to - look after a customer.I came to London a few years later to join Davies Arnold Cooper.

It was a small practice in those days.

I have seen it grow into a significant firm.

As it has grown, it has had to change.

And like every profession, we solicitors have had to change.

Let me give you a snapshot of the profession today.l There are more than 100,000 solicitors on the Roll;l More than 50% of admissions to the profession are women;l 19% of solicitors admitted last year came from an ethnic minority background.On the basis of these statistics, it looks like a promising picture of a reasonably diverse profession.

However, the Law Society cannot afford to be complacent.

In my role, as president, I have taken on the responsibility of championing diversity issues.

My purpose is to ensure that the Law Society, as an employer and a regulator, strives unceasingly to improve its record and the professions on diversity, in terms of: gender, race, age, disability and sexual orientation.And as to other changes, it was only 30 or so years ago, that firms were not allowed to have more than 20 partners.

Even ten years ago, most solicitors would not have talked about global law firms.

Would you have envisaged then that, in 2001, an English law firm would have more 600 partners who operate worldwide, with nearly 3,000 fee-earners, and an annual turnover of nearly 900 million? What was unthinkable yesterday is normal today.

Technological change is transforming our client's needs.

Knowledge that was previously confined to qualified lawyers is now available on-line on the Web and can be accessed by all.

But the results of all that are paradoxical.

As more knowledge is available, the value comes from those who can sift it, interpret and apply it.

And knowledge helps people be more aware of their rights and how and where they can obtain assistance.

That expands the demand for legal services for us.

Bill Gates took questions from the 100 guests at his the launch of his book, Business: the Speed of Thought.

All his answers were the same: 'You can get it on the Internet.' When I got a chance, I asked him about the anti-trust case against Microsoft and whether he selected his lawyers from the Internet.

He was somewhat irritated by my question.

But his answer was that he chose them personally.

And I elicited that he met them regularly face to face, not just virtually.There is a great deal available on the Internet.

But it cannot provide everything.

And it cannot deliver what solicitors deliver: expert interpretation and application of knowledge; management of the transactions or case; and personal service and good client care.The demand for legal services breaks down into three main needs.

First there is the 'rocket science' category.

Matters of such importance that the client needs the best solicitors available and will pay the asking price.

The second is work of importance to the client.

For this the client is willing to pay a fair, negotiated price.

It includes some of the work reserved to solicitors such as litigation.

We have to compete for this properly paid work in a highly competitive marketplace.

If we want to win it, we have to differentiate ourselves by tailormaking our service to the needs of the client.The third category covers routine needs.

This includes low-value bulk conveyancing, debt collection, and other low-value matters where the outcome is not of earth-shattering importance to the client.

Essentially these are commoditised, not specialist, requirements.This work is only available to solicitors at bare bones rates.

It carries with it the risk of being a loss leader, which leads nowhere.

It often requires a level of skill, which is not exclusive to solicitors.The future for us lies only with work where we can add the extra value which solicitors uniquely bring.

This means we need to major on the first and second categories of work.

The work that is of such importance or value to clients that they will choose - and pay - a solicitor to do it.

Commoditised work by itself is unlikely to provide many of us with a bright future unless we can find profitable ways of handling it.We also need to take the current, less than welcome, economic trends into account.

They herald a downturn in some forms of legal work and, no doubt, there will be more price sensitivity even though we're told we are not going into a full recession.

Because of our versatility most, but I regret to say, not all of us, will be able to cope with these challenges.

However, it will be painful for many.

We will have to face the fact that some of the things we now do, and the way we do them, will not remain viable.Let me now move on to talk about the Law Society.

The Society is not entombed in the past.

It has adapted itself to changing times.

We in the Society have constantly to prove that this profession can regulate itself better than anyone else could.

I was encouraged to hear the Lord Chancellor say last week that he has seen an improvement in our complaints handling.

In reporting to the home affairs committee, he said a lot had been done.

But there is still more to do.

We are committed to achieving further improvement through our new consumer redress scheme.

We have to give solicitors the competitive edge that comes from being properly regulated.

And from the benefits of being able to offer the protection of compulsory liability insurance and the protection of a compensation fund.But I would like to focus on the representative side of the Society's work.

We cannot turn the clock back to easier times - to the days of scale fees and name your own price.

The Society needs to help the profession understand that nobody, least of all government, owes solicitors a living.

We need to help solicitors to fight our corner on our own considerable merits.

I am determined that the Law Society will be visible in this aim.There are battles ahead.

We will fight them with the same determination as the successful campaign for a fair criminal defence contract.

The Society stood solidly with the members of our profession who are criminal defence solicitors and we got results.

And there are considerable external challenges to be met.

For example, we have to respond to the Office of Fair Trading's report - Competition in the Professions - published last March.

A government consultation on how the report might be implemented is expected soon.

While we are willing to respond positively to unavoidable and sensible change we will attack some of the report's ill-considered proposals.

Because if they were implemented they would backfire on consumers.

We will continue to object to the unwise recommendation that banks and other lending institutions should be permitted to carry our conveyancing work for their own borrowers.

We will also oppose the report's threat to weaken solicitor and client privilege and confidentiality - which even in these difficult times is an essential right which belongs to our clients.

We will resist a complete free-for-all on cold calling which, if the OFT had its way, would encourage ambulance chasing of the worst possible type.

But there are also aspects of the OFT report that we welcome.

The OFT says the ban on MDPs is restrictive.

We agree.

We stand almost alone in the legal professions in Europe in recognising that consumer demand, which fuels government intentions, makes MDPs a certainty.

Rather than say no, we are exploring models that will safeguard clients' confidentiality and guard against conflicts of interest.

In this way, we will also preserve our ethics and professionalism.The OFT says certain aspects of our publicity code could be viewed as restrictive.

We agree.

We have substantially de-regulated in this area.

But we have kept one restriction - against cold calling individual clients.Another challenge we face on behalf of our clients are the proposals in Lord Justice Auld's review of the criminal justice system.

If implemented some of these proposals would undermine proper access to justice.

But just as with the OFT report, there are some aspects of the Auld report which we welcome.

By concentrating on the interests of the public and avoiding special pleading just for ourselves, and emphasising the unique added value solicitors bring to business and individuals lives, we will enhance the profession's reputation and influence.And, of course, the reforms which we have made at the Law Society itself will help.

They are enabling the Society to concentrate on its major objective.

To promote solicitors as independent and effectively self-regulated providers of legal services.

This involves an outward focus from Chancery Lane.World-class businesses do not only talk about themselves.

They talk about their products and services.

That is the determination of the current office holder team.

It is the business of the law.These changes will lead to a markedly heightened awareness of the Society's relevance and importance to all solicitors.

I and my fellow office holders, our chief executive, the chairmen and chairwomen of the Society's new boards and, I hope, every single council member, will begin to talk the Society up, now that it is on the right agenda - your agenda.

And the need for talking us up does not end within the Law Society.

I know that community service is valued by our big battalion law firms.

Why else do they take such pride in their own impressive pro bono schemes? But I do ask some of them to speak of their appreciation of the value of other lawyers working at the edge of community service day in and day out.Solicitors also have a proud record of standing up for human rights.

And our influence is most certainly needed at a time when human rights are being threatened by terrorism.

It is now six and a half weeks since the appalling terrorist atrocities on 11 September in the US.As lawyers, we are called on to contribute in two important ways to the response to those events.

One is practical.

We must do everything we can to help in the drive to stop the flow of money to terrorist organisations.

The Law Society has intensified its efforts to prevent solicitors getting involved in money laundering.

We have set up a special hotline for solicitors, increased co-operation with other agencies and published details of organisations and individuals whose assets have been frozen in the US.

I urge firms to check whether any of them have been or are clients.

And we have issued a revised guidance to firms.

We will, in addition, be staging roadshows around the country for solicitors.Our second duty is to contribute to the debate on the proper response to the fear of terrorism.

I am glad to see that the government has not rushed headlong into legislation.

The anti-terrorism Bill is expected in mid-November.

It is important that it is subject to full and proper scrutiny and debate, both inside and outside parliament.

I hope the Bill will have safeguards written into it.

For example, to ensure that any extra powers to gather information, or monitor people's lives, will be used only for the purpose of countering terrorism.

There must be a guarantee from the government that 'exceptional' provisionswill be used only for these 'exceptional' circumstances, and not as catch-all measures into which other government desires will be broughtI was perturbed to learn of a recent attack on a Muslim English solicitor.

He was representing someone suspected of terrorist connections.

I condemn any attack on a solicitor because of their race, or because they are doing their job without fear or favour.

It is an unwelcome reminder that there are too many examples across the world of lawyers being persecuted for trying to do their job.I could not be more proud about being a solicitor.

This pride began 34 years ago and it is heightened every time I conduct an admission ceremony.

I have never lost that sense of pride about our great profession.

As your president, I hope that during my year, I will be able to engender that sense more widely.This is an edited version of the speech given by Law Society President David McIntosh.

A full version can be found on-line at www.press.lawsociety.org.uk