Report comment

“The Law Society was founded on 2 June 1825, when a committee of management was appointed. The Society acquired its first Royal Charter in 1831, as The Society of Attorneys, Solicitors, Proctors and others not being Barristers, practising in the Courts of Law and Equity of the United Kingdom”

So, solicitors have now been around now for over 193 years!

Solicitors came together originally as a profession, to enhance the reputation of its members, and to use ethically asymmetric knowledge, for the benefit of our clients. They belonged to a profession for higher motives.

All was well, until some civil servant advised the justice Minister at the time, that a new system of regulation should put “consumerism” at its heart.

Despite initial indications that the SRA would go softly on the profession, an unholy alliance of regulatory bodies and committees have evolved to a point, that collectively they are making the practice of law unworkable in 2018.

Now we have an unseemly spat between a consumer body and the LSB.

How has it come to this?

Lack of leadership has eroded both the confidence and stature of solicitors, and unless the Board and Council of the Law Society regain their passion for the law, remembering why they all qualified in the first place, I see nothing but a dysfunctional and depressing future for what survives of our profession.

The status quo will not do.