Rudiments of reformLaw Society President Michael Napier on why the society's forthcoming reform vote is crucialThe Law Society Council did a good day's work on 18 January.

During a day of intensive, excellent debate, the council put in place the corner posts of reform that will enable the Society to be a model regulator and effective representative of the profession.

The first post was the council's agreement to have up to 5% lay membership on the council and to create 25 extra seats for special interest and member groups.This will enable the council to be truly representative of the diversity of the profession.

It was particularly pleasing that the council accepted that trainee solicitors and legal practice course students should have a voice on the council - younger members are the future of the profession.

The meeting also agreed that the council will form an electoral college for the election each year of a Deputy Vice President, who will normally succeed to the office of Vice President and President.This, of course, flows from having an enlarged and more representative council that truly reflects members' interests.

A ballot of all the profession in England and Wales to elect the Society's office-holders has taken place in each of the past six years, often with negative publicity.The number of solicitors voting has steadily dwindled over the years from 33% to less than 20%, while the elections have cost the profession 95,000 a year.The enlarged council will have the legitimacy to elect the profession's leaders, as it will be much more representative of the profession.The reforms relating to the size of the council and the officeholder elections require the approval of a special general meeting, which will be held on28 February.Papers for the SGM are now being sent to all Law Society members.The council also agreed in principle to establish a governing structure of a main board and subsidiary boards whose specific terms of reference will be finalised at the March council meeting.The compliance board, overseeing the regulatory functions of the Society, will have up to 50% lay members (excluding the chairman) and the standards board, which will oversee the Society's training, education, ethics and standard setting functions, will have up to 25% lay members.

Lay membership at all levels of the Society's governance is a positive step.

A commitment to encouraging client care is an integral part of my presidency.

Consistent with that, the profession can be closer to the thinking of its clients with the benefit of the consumer point of view in the council chamber.

That perspective will be extremely valuable in helping the council to shape the future direction of the profession.

We have already become used to lay involvement at the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) and, when further work has been done, the council will consider the shape and content of a proposed consumer redress scheme for service complaints, including the possibility of creating the post of lay commissioner.

Over the past few months, the council had done much to bring the Society back on track in key areas of its activities, for example:l Our ability to agree with the Lord Chancellor's Department's demanding but realistic targets for our performance on complaints handling this year.

We have more to do to achieve better turn-around times on complaints and consistently high standards of decision making on cases, but this can and will be achieved; l The improved rates of pay, announced a fortnight ago, for family and many other civil categories of community legal service work are the first significant increases in five years and long overdue.

They are the result of strong and effective negotiation by the Society.

The next task is to make similar progress on rates for criminal practitioners, hundreds of whom have attended meetings recently to discuss criminal contracting.

Standing together, the aim is to achieve a realistic and workable criminal contract with the Legal Services Commission (LSC), and; l Our new chief executive, Janet Paraskeva, has worked to reshape the Society's existing budget so that we can invest in better technology to deliver better services to members and more efficient regulation.

She is reorganising the way the Society's staff delivers the work of the Society, and is building a six-strong senior management team that will be an energetic combination of internal and external talent.

It was noticeable that the Lord Chancellor mentioned our reform programme positively when taking questions from the Home Affairs Select Committee last week.

It is fundamentally important that the Society is viewed as a credible regulator and representative voice for the profession by the government.

Or course, reform is not an end in itself.

Modernising and reshaping the Society to lead the profession and be its respected voice in the public arena is no small task.But we are well on course and I am determined that we will succeed in turning the tanker around.

I hope that I can rely on your support for the reforms at the SGM.l The Special General meeting of the Society will take place on 28 February at 2.30pm in the Law Society's Hall, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL.Michael Napier is the Law Society President.