Nicholas Fluck

Our ‘expensive’ regulatory system, according to Nick Fluck, the Law Society’s new president, is ‘among the most onerous in western Europe’ and is particularly ‘burdensome’ for small firms such as his.

In the same breath, however, he admits to being a ‘strong supporter’ of the Solicitors Regulation Authority because it ‘underpins the status of our profession’. He says: ‘Good regulation is good for the profession because nothing damages our reputation more badly than allowing dodgy solicitors to remain in practice.’ So he is nuanced on the subject of regulation. What else do we know about Nick Fluck? He is one of two partners at Lincolnshire firm Stapleton & Son, where he has practised since taking articles before admission to the roll in 1982. The firm is a general practice which undertakes residential conveyancing, commercial property, private client, family law and mediation. He joined the Law Society’s council in 2005 and, upon assuming the presidency on 11 July, told the Gazette his ambition was to ‘finish my year in office with more people knowing what solicitors really do’.

He also wants to be the ‘eye-opener’ that shows practitioners what the Law Society does. ‘A letter from the Law Society was always very bad news for solicitors of my generation,’ Fluck says. ‘But following our split with the SRA, we really are on your side. We get just 13% of the practising fee and have to generate all the other revenue that funds our services. And we do a lot for the profession, from our current work on legal aid to policy-making, human rights interventions and guidance on law firm management.’

Fluck promises to be an ardent champion of the profession. ‘Solicitors,’ he says, ‘hold the thin line between law and anarchy, and I’m going to shout about how good they are. You only see how much the law matters when it breaks down, as it has in Turkey and Egypt. In our own backyard, we care about access to legal advice for everybody, from Abu Qatada to Joe Bloggs. It is part of the greatness of the UK to maintain that ideal.’

Stirring stuff, but let us get down to specifics. How exactly is he going to help the Law Society connect more with the City? Fluck says: ‘The City is a slightly different animal from, say, the high street. It has its own agenda and priorities, but every solicitor’s instincts are the same. We have lots in common beneath the surface, with strong views on how to deliver legal services. And we all work in a system where everything is underpinned by the law.’

He rebuts suggestions that the City is somehow ‘aloof’ from the Society and the rest of the profession, pointing out how City firms are helping resist the government’s assault on legal aid. ‘The primacy of English law is central to what City firms do,’ he says. ‘They know that damaging one part of English law, such as scrapping legal aid for society’s most vulnerable, will make overseas investors look askance at other parts of English law, too. That will hit bottom lines everywhere.’

Can he be specific about the kind of assistance the Law Society provides to City firms? He replies that on the international front, the Society helps open new markets and facilitates cross-border transactions, not only in Europe through its Brussels office, but also worldwide. ‘Our lobbying arm also helps members get access to government,’ he says, ‘which is particularly important for multinationals.’ Moreover, the Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter helps firms demonstrate their diversity credentials, which more and more corporate clients are demanding, he adds.

So the City is already safely and actively within the Law Society fold? Fluck says: ‘Individual City lawyers attend Society events and sit on council committees. I would be astonished if any managing partner of a City firm was unwilling to become involved with us.’ What about in-house lawyers? Fluck stresses that in-house covers an ‘enormous’ range of specialisms, from major corporations employing teams of lawyers to single generalists handling all of a company’s legal requirements. The Society, Fluck says, provides the latter, often quite isolated lawyers, with advice on contracts, the regulatory position and everything else they may require.

He says: ‘We are a membership society and it would be daft to make ourselves unattractive to so important a sector. We must continue proving our relevance. The more specialised in-house lawyers are, the more difficult it is for them to look outwards and see what’s on offer. If they are not looking, then we must do something extra to make ourselves more visible.’

The Law Society has recently helped persuade the government to rethink its price-competitive tendering policy for legal aid and also its proposal to scrap the right of a publicly funded defendant to choose their defence lawyer. Does Fluck plan to sustain the momentum? ‘Absolutely,’ he says. ‘In fact, Chris Grayling was concerned that all the progress we have made so far under Lucy [Scott-Moncrieff] was going to be reversed because of the change of president. We assured him that it was a Society initiative, a concerted rather than an individual effort, and that the team is still in place.’

BORN Aldershot

SCHOOL Several, ‘as is the lot of an army child’. These included Stamford School, Lincoln School and Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, all in Lincolnshire

UNIVERSITY Humanities at Huddersfield Polytechnic, common professional examination and Law Society finals at Leeds Polytechnic

What message does Fluck have for the enemies of legal aid? He says: ‘If they think defence lawyers are all "fat cats", then they should come and see criminal legal aid in action: 3am visits to the police station; missing documentation; the defendant still so high on drugs that he has forgotten why he called you.’ Is Fluck confident that the right outcome will be achieved? ‘Cautiously optimistic,’ he replies. ‘We were responding to a consultation with just a single option on the table unless someone came up with a better idea, which the Society duly did.’

Moving on to another hot topic: what does the future hold for embattled sole practitioners and the high street? Fluck replies that both sectors are ‘bullish’ about their prospects, although both have protested at the level of ‘box-ticking’ regulation that is increasingly expected. The SRA requirement to nominate compliance officers for legal practice, and finance and administration has been particularly unpopular with firms that do not have the staff to spare for such roles.

Both sectors have also had firms excluded from lenders’ mortgage panels because of the low volume of work they generate. Fluck says that Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson has been ‘putting in the spadework with lenders’ to persuade them to change policy. The development of the Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme, an accreditation that guarantees the highest standards of service, has also persuaded lenders, including HSBC, to reinstate lawyers on to their panels. Fluck says: ‘Lenders that cite low volumes of work for removing lawyers from their panels are missing the point. One solicitor in a firm that does just one mortgage a month is more likely to get it right than a paralegal appointed last week doing lots of mortgages. And, if truth be told, all lenders at some time have developed a product that is a "lemon" and that nobody wants to buy.’

Other pressing challenges faced by both sole practitioner and high street firms include the Jackson civil justice reforms, which have had a devastating effect on personal injury firms, and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which has slashed legal aid across most areas of civil law.

Fluck says: ‘We don’t have a silver bullet, but we can educate and inform sole practitioners and smaller firms with practice notes, regulatory assistance and guidance on professional indemnity insurance. And we can advise on practice management, marketing, ethics and all other aspects of running your firm while complying with regulations.’

What else is on the horizon for the Law Society and the wider profession? ‘Education and technology,’ Fluck responds. He says that the Society accepts that the newly published Legal Education and Training Review, jointly sponsored by the SRA, the Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Standards, is a ‘comprehensive study’ of the different strands that make up the educational and training system. ‘But at 371 pages, it is pretty indigestible,’ he says. There are two measures that Fluck would like to see adopted. ‘We need a non-graduate entry to the profession of our own, not just the CILEx route. And we need to provide incentives for universities to ensure that their graduates get on to the law career ladder.’

On the subject of technology, he is confident that law firms have embraced the benefits of computers and the various software packages available to make their working lives easier. But he sees dangers around data protection. ‘Now that we are all storing data on computers, there are going to be the inevitable laptops left in the back of taxis or data accidentally emailed to the wrong recipients,’ he says. ‘There are also risks associated with the cross-border transfer of data. Firms might say that their data is securely stored in the cloud, but where is the cloud’s server based – Taiwan, perhaps, or Bangkok?’

Finally, in his capacity as president, Fluck is soon to depart for San Francisco and the annual meeting of the American Bar Association (ABA). Why is he going and what does he hope to achieve? ‘The annual meeting is a nexus for legal professionals, not just the ABA,’ he says. ‘It is an opportunity to sell English law and ensure global players in legal services understand the primacy of our system. Legal services in this country generate a trade surplus of around £4bn. We tinker with English law at our peril.’