I was elected to the Law Society Council in 1994 with a driving ambition to modernise the Society -- to change it from an irrelevant, slow-moving anachronism into an organisation which understood its members' problems and represented their real interests, which could act decisively when it had to and, most importantly, was respected by the public, the government and solicitors.Some progress has been made, but not enough.

The time has come to go the heart of the problem and radically reform the structure of the Council itself.The existing Council has 75 members: 61 elected geographical constituencies and 14 chosen by a committee to represent 'types' of practice or practitioner.

This structure is outdated.

Most solicitors now identify with the type of work they do, not where they do it.

Add to this the growing difficulty the Society has in finding even one candidate to stand for certain Council seats and the reluctance of high-flyers to get involved and the need for change becomes obvious.My proposal is to replace the entire existing Council with a slimmed-down, more representative body made up of the best of the profession, people of national stature and leaders in their fields.The new Council would have 40 members.

There would be 16 general seats -- not geographical -- repr esenting the profession at large and open to any solicitor; 18 'specialist' seats representing the most common areas of legal practice and types of solicitor and open to anyone who fulfilled sensible criteria; and six lay Council members representing the wider community and bringing fresh experience and expertise to the mix.All 34 solicitor members would be directly elected by the profession.

The lay members would be chosen by advertisement and interview.

To preserve the geographical voice and ensure grass-roots input there would also be an 'upper house' representing all local and regional law societies and recognised Law Society groups and other groups, if they wanted to take part; for example, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyer and the Solicitors Family Law Association.

That upper house would meet twice a year and would both provide a steer and guidance to the Council.Getting right the balance of the specialist seats would be difficult.

There are strong arguments for a variety of mixes.

E-commerce and financial services are growth areas.

Should they be included now or later? What if there are too many London members? In Ireland, there is a similar system and no problem has arisen with Dublin being over-represented.

If we cannot achieve a fair balance naturally we might bring in regional seats later.

The trick is to remain flexible.The proposed specialist seats would be: criminal law, civil law, general practice, international, family law, commercial law, conveyancing, employed in commerce or industry, employed in local government, sole practitioner, Crown Prosecution Service, women solicitors, ethnic minority solicitors, young solicitors (under 36), City of London (partners), City of London (non-partners), and solicitors practising in Wales.To encourage the best in the profession to come forward, we would also need to change the way the Council works.

Currently, it deals with too much petty detail and the workload of individual members can be daunting.

This is a major deterrence against joining for anyone with a busy, successful career.In the future, the Council should meet less often, perhaps six times a year, perhaps sometimes at weekends.

It must concentrate on the big issues, the opportunities and the problems facing the profession and it must tackle them head on, make clear decisions and then effectively delegate carrying them out to the highly skilled and dedicated staff of the Society.

Making sure those decisions are carried out properly and swiftly would be the responsibility of a smaller 'executive committee' and the President.It is also clear to me that a one-year term is too short for a President to be effective.

No organisation can function with a change at the top every 12 months.

It causes uncertainty and guarantees a lack of continuity.

No sooner has one mastered one's brief and built a rapport with government ministers and other key individuals than the end is sight.Whenever it occurs, there is a risk of of the move being interpreted as personal ambition.

To avoid that, let me emphasise the two-year presidency is only a small part of the proposal and might be better dealt with separately by the new Council itself.It is not a perfect solution but better than running the risk of it being allowed to distract us from the real issue -- the modernisation of the Council as a whole.

The only proviso I would suggest is that whatever happens, the election of the President must remain in the hands of the profession as a whole.Action must be taken quickly.

The whole process takes about three months.

If i t is not started now and completed by the end of this Council year (July), my belief is it will never happen.

The Council has been talking about change for many years.

Given the chance Council members will go on doing so for years to come.

That is not to be critical of individuals.

It is just the nature of the beast, a product of its structure.Whether we take the plunge has to be decided by the profession as a whole.

Not only is that constitutionally required but it would be unfair to expect the Council itself to decide its own future.

They would be too open to jibes about vested interests and 'turkeys voting for Christmas'.What is the procedure? We need a democratic ballot of the whole profession.

Such a ballot can only be called by a special general meeting.

And an SGM can only be called by the Council itself or five local law society secretaries or 100 ordinary members of the profession.

The question I need to ask is: how many of you agree with me that change is needed, and that now is the time to do it?