HAVE YOUR SAY - The Future of the Law Society

This consultation was carried out by the Law Society as a poll of the profession.  The driver behind the consultation was the Clementi reforms and the responses to the Government's White Paper - "Putting Consumers First".

Background

Market research and a profession-wide consultation are the springboards for a radical re-think of the way the Law Society delivers its representational activities. The aim is to sharpen the focus on members, providing solicitors with the services and products they've told us they want.

Since January 2006, two new boards, the Regulation Board and the Consumer Complaints Board, have been overseeing the Society’s regulatory and complaints functions. As part of the separation of functions, the Council of the Society is reshaping the way the Society delivers its representation and law reform work, and the support services it offers solicitors.

The Society started with the most comprehensive piece of market research ever conducted by the profession, to find out more about what solicitors want from  their representative body and how they want it delivered. This was followed up with the Have Your Say consultation, giving all solicitors the opportunity to get involved.

The Law Society's Have Your Say consultation closed on 21 April.  The Society received an excellent response of over 18,600 completed questionnaires.  Thanks to all TSG members who took part!

The TSG entered a full response on the part of the Group.  This concentrated on the potential impact to TSG members of the proposed changes, and made suggestions for additional amendments and considerations.

TSG Response

The full text of the response can be accessed here ---> TSG CONSULTATION RESPONSE

The TSG commented on several consultations this year, most notably the “Putting Consumers First” White Paper, and several main themes run through these documents and the TSG responses.
 
These themes also run through the response to Sir David Clementi’s Review of the Regulatory Framework for Legal Services in England and Wales, and the TSG was supportive of the general considerations to the reform of legal services. Namely:
 
i.  Maintenance of the rule of law;
 
ii.  Access to justice;
 
iii.  Consumer and competition considerations;
 
iv.  A confident, strong and effective legal profession; and
 
v.  The promotion of public understanding of citizen’s legal rights.
 
The TSG remains supportive of these aims, and continues to see them as vital to the running of an effective and efficient legal profession. The aims are all inter-linked and each affects the other so that they are not mutually exclusive.
 
The TSG is of the belief that strong pubic support and confidence in the profession is key to access to justice. Without public confidence, the rule of law is undermined. Clearly, the profession is far more customer-focussed than it has been in the past, and this requires that the profession promote understanding of the rights of the British citizen.
 
The TSG believes that confidence in the profession is crucial to effective training of solicitors. It is crucial to attract candidates into the profession and maintain standards. An effective profession now is vital to an effective profession in the future. It is the solicitors of today who train the solicitors of tomorrow. A strong profession is required to lobby government and protect solicitors’ own interests.

RESULTS

Almost 19,000 solicitors responded to the Have Your Say consultation and the clear message is that they want the Law Society to concentrate on representing their interests to Government, the profession’s regulators, consumer groups and other key stakeholders. 

Providing services to members is the Society’s second most important role and influencing legislation and public policy development where it affects solicitors came third in their ranking.

Ethics advice was the most highly valued Law Society service with practice advice, training and online information the next most popular.  Solicitors also said that they would like particularly like services to be tailored to their area of law and the type of practice they work in.

The full results of the consultation can be accessed at www.lawsociety.org.uk.  They will be used by the Law Society Council to create the leaner, more responsive organisation that solicitors want to see.

Kevin Martin, Law Society President, said:

“The results provide an excellent springboard to transform the Law Society.   The Council is now developing the services that we will offer in future based on what solicitors have told us they want.   We are listening.  Such a high response to the consultation with clear results gives us an excellent basis for change.  The Law Society will be very different in twelve months time and we will be demonstrating that we are a strong voice for solicitors, supporting them in developing their practices and careers.”

Janet Paraskeva, Chief Executive of the Law Society said:

“Change is already beginning.  Based on what the profession has said, we have reviewed our activities in the current year, stopping some and accelerating others in line with solicitors’ priorities.  We have already made some difficult decisions to create savings in resources that will in turn help us to keep the PC fee down in line with the wishes of the profession for a more efficient Society.  Our future operations will be focussed on their value to the profession and will aim to be self-financing as far as possible.”

LAW SOCIETY RESPONSE

The following report was provided by the Law Society, and comes direct from the Law Society President, Kevin Martin.

"We've heard loud and clear from the profession, both in last year's market research carried out for the Society by NOP and through the Have Your Say consultation of the entire profession that closed on 21 April.   Having now had time to analyse the responses in detail, it is clear the nearly 19,000 responses were broadly representative of the profession in terms of gender and ethnicity and in terms of practice type - private practice, in-house and government. Such a high response to the consultation with such clear results gives us an excellent basis for change.

This means that the detailed findings will be a good guide to how the Society can best organise itself to meet the needs of all of the profession. However, the fact that older members of the profession were over-represented among the respondents compared to their younger colleagues, is itself a clear message about the need to engage differently with younger solicitors.

Solicitors want a focus on representing their interests.

Members tell us that representing the views of solicitors to Government, the profession's regulators, consumer groups and others is by far the most important function of the Society. 50% of respondents said that this was the single most important activity for the Society. Having separated our regulatory and consumer complaints functions from our representative and law reform work, we are now very well placed to deliver this focus, but solicitors also value members services and our law reform and legal policy work.

The survey results also show that certain key services are valued right across the profession. Ethics advice is by far and away the single most highly valued service. One third of respondents said that it was the most important service to them. Whilst 14% placed the Gazette in first place.

The Practice Advice Service, training and online information services came third, fourth and fifth respectively. In all cases, we will be looking at how we deliver those services in new and different ways.  

It was also clear from the findings that service provision will need to acknowledge the diversity of the profession. In-house solicitors highlighted training and on-line library services as important to them more often than their colleagues in private practice. Perhaps not surprisingly, students and trainee solicitors are particularly interested in careers advice and training. The future Law Society will need to be designed with a close eye on what solicitors across this diverse profession need.
 
The full results of the consultation are now in the public domain and can be accessed on the website.

The results provide an excellent springboard to transform the Law Society. And using the consultation responses, we were able to take significant steps to determine the strategic scope and purpose for the Law Society of the future and to steer further more detailed work on the future design.     

Thanks to the work of Council last week, we now have the overall framework of services the Society should offer to best meet the profession's needs."

REFORM

The final stage in determining what the Law Society should look like began in July 2006 when Council began determining the outline shape of the future organisation.

That included the need to begin developing ideas for how  the Law Society improve and coordinate their own efforts with those of local law societies. The Society will next need to demonstrate to the profession that they are acting on what they want, and really delivering a revitalised Law Society.

The Law Society state that they are moving quickly to achieve the necessary far-reaching changes.

The current reprioritisation exercise will make sure that what the Society does in 2006 is closely aligned with what the profession demands of its national representative body.   It is determined to be better focused on delivering those activities and services that the profession particularly value.

The Law Society will be very different in twelve months time and in the meantime, the Society will be building on its percieved strengths, achievements and reputation to try and demonstrate that it is still a strong voice for solicitors.

The Law Society plans to be reformed and ready by July 2007.  We will keep you appraised of the changes, as and when they happen.

The TSG is in talks with both the Law Society and the YSG concerning its own future in the light of the responses to "Have Your Say" and Clementi in general.  To read about this, please visit the Future of the Membership pages on this website.