RAC takes lead in employed lawyers revolution

The RAC has become the first company to declare its intention to offer legal services to the public after the Law Society Council last week approved the principle of employed solicitors advising third parties.

However, the council voted down proposals to abolish both the ban on fee-sharing, and the introduction and referral code.

Eddie Ryan, the RAC's director of legal services, said: 'The RAC is committed to being the first organisation to take advantage of [the] rule changes and offer a broader range of legal help to the public under the RAC brand.'

Jonathan Gulliford, the RAC's legal implementation manager, added that the RAC's plans are limited to legal work for motoring-related problems, such as road traffic accidents, disputes with garages, and prosecutions.

'We have the solicitors and infrastructure to move into this,' he said.

The RAC employs seven solicitors and one trainee to give members initial advice, and Mr Gulliford said the number would increase once the rule change happened.

The RAC refers members on to 24 external firms, and he said the idea was to make the in-house team the 25th member of the panel.

However, the plan to allow employed solicitors to advise the public was passed on the explicit condition that it would not go ahead if it is not possible for third-party clients of an employed solicitor to benefit from the same level of protection as that available to clients of a solicitor in private practice.

Many council members said they did not have enough detail to approve abolition of the fee-sharing ban and referral code, and they voted 40 to 33 against the changes.

Ed Nally, chairman of the regulation review working party that put forward all the proposals, said some of the issues raised by the ban and code would arise again when the council came to consider the detail of the changes to employed solicitors.

Mr Nally indicated that the three proposals worked as a package in the drive to consider new ways of offering legal services.

Some take the view that removing the ban and code is vital to free private practice solicitors to compete with employed solicitors.

However, others see the changes as purely structural, while removing the fee-sharing ban goes to the heart of the profession's independence.

Neil Rose