President’s Jottings

INTRODUCTION

President’s Jottings

SPRING 2022

Thursday 24th February 2022 saw the end of all Coronavirus restrictions in the United Kingdom. This was a month shy of the 2nd anniversary of the first lockdown imposed on 23rd March 2020.

Since the restrictions were all lifted, we have returned to our offices, albeit many businesses have adopted a hybrid working approach. In addition to my day job, in my role as President of Surrey Law Society (SLS), I have been happy to be able to attend some events face to face.

In February, I joined a selection of judges to listen to students from University of Law (Guildford), the University of Surrey and Royal Holloway, in their annual “Client Interviewing Competition”. As ever, it was very well attended, and the quality and calibre of the entrants was exceptional this year. The judges’ decision was not an easy one. I would like to extend my congratulations to the University of Law’s Izabela Toma and Khola Shah on winning the competition.

My thanks also to Samantha Borek and Alice Green of University of Law (Guildford) and Sarah Hart of Cowans Solicitors, for putting on this excellent event. Listening skills are often forgotten and can be classed as “soft skills”, however the ability to listen to a client’s concerns and wishes as to the outcome of their case is a very important skill. Therefore, hosting such an event for the future lawyers of our country is commendable.

2022 has also seen the inauguration of the first EDI committee for Surrey Law Society, and we are proud to have held our first event with the very wonderful Mary Eniolu, a leadership coach and sole practitioner. Her talk on recognising and eliminating bias was very interesting and resonated with many people in the audience.

I’m looking forward to more EDI events held for Surrey Lawyers. Please also look out for our LinkedIn posts for more information on forthcoming events, as well as our series of Equality and Diversity educational content, put together by Amber Matheson, myself and Emma Patel of Rosewood Solicitors, who were winners of our “Law Firm of the Year” category in the SLS Legal Awards of September 2021.

If there are any specific areas of equality, diversity and inclusion you would like Surrey Law Society to cover then please email me and I will endeavour to add these to our contents calendar.

The theme of “ending bias” which as I said was Mary Eniolu’s topic, was also adopted for International Women’s Day 2022, and I was invited to speak at an event hosted by Surrey Junior Lawyers Division. My thanks go to Amber Matheson for the invitation, and I commend her for all her hard work for putting on this most excellent of events, in collaboration with Surrey Association of Women Solicitors.

Another significant event in 2022 so far was collating our response to the SRA’s consultation on the closure of SIF. We also urged members to send individual responses as a demonstration of the strength of feeling surrounding this most significant of topics. My thanks go to Alastair Logan, TLS Council Member for Surrey, for taking so much time and effort to prepare our comprehensive response.

It's always a pleasure to represent SLS on behalf of our members, and an honour to be invited to speak and attend events. My thanks as ever go to our sponsors and patrons as well as to our members for their continued support of SLS. Without their continued support and understanding we would not have been able to progress as we have over the past 2 years, which were undoubtedly marred by the impact of COVID-19. SLS is here to continue to support you and therefore if there are matters which you wish to bring to our attention then please do get in touch and we will be more than happy to help you where possible. ■

Mumtaz Hussain

Mumtaz Hussain

President