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11 January 2017

Dear Law Gazette,

In the Code operated by the Law Society in respect of "Freedom of Information Requests" there is a date given. It pre-dates the 2007 Legal Services Act. The code can be downloaded from the Law Society website.

When Ms Dixon was CEO of the Law Society what did she personally do in respect of the policies and codes, including that of the Freedom of Information Code as operated by the Law Society?

I mention this because there is mention of the Law Society not yet being a public authority but that they would use the code anyway.

In 2014, I wrote to the Law Society, Mr Stanley, in the following way:

"..I look forward to hearing from you with regards to the letter sent by Mr Stanley to me and to which I then responded. There is, I believe a specific "tie-in" with the SRA and their ICRS complaints mechanism, as the information being investigated does cover some of the same ground.

My concerns are for consumer safety and for openness in public life, for whilst the Law Society is perhaps not a "public body" per se, but has a Charter, it does perform public functions whereby only people regulated by the SRA, its independent arm, can be practising solicitors and have firms of practising solicitors.

I feel that we are living in a legal revolution. I would not have thought it possible even 5 years ago to see barristers go on strike, and yet this happened earlier this month."

3 years later, and still nothing has happened to make the Law Society a public authority. What did Ms Dixon and her predecessors as CEO of the Law Society actually do to lobby Parliament and the Ministry to become a public body, if at all?