100 days in lockdown

Paul Tennant, Chief Executive of the Law Society, reviews what the Society has done in numbers and achieved since the start of lockdown.

■ Published 104 pieces of content in our website

■ Engaged 210 members through our live webinars on legal aid, furlough and return to the office and a further 150 through our roundtables

■ Engaged almost 8,000 members through our surveys

■ Achieved more than 540,000 views of our website

■ Had a total of 4,005,272 impressions for COVID related tweets

■ Over 1,000 listens to our podcasts

■ Submitted 5 pieces of written evidence to parliamentary select committees and given oral evidence 3 times

■ Mentioned 13 times in the UK Parliament

■ Wrote 12 letters to UK ministers

■ Met with UK ministers 17 times

■ Donated £100,000 to legal advice charities

■ Responded to over 2,100 member queries

■ Sent over 100 COVID ‘return to the office’ posters packs to small firms as part of our return to the office toolkit

■ Achieved substantial press coverage: – Carried out 66 broadcast interviews – 143 articles in UK nationals – 517 in legal press – 282 in Law Society Gazette – 265 in regional press – 546 articles citing Simon Davis

■ Produced 86 daily and weekly COVID & legal services bulletins and sent them to the Top 300 firms

As a result, we have secured positive developments for the profession:

■ Convinced the MoJ and the SRA to allow oaths relating to commercial transactions to be sworn via videolink (although appropriate record keeping will help if the oath’s validity is later challenged).

■ Persuaded the Land Registry to accept Mercury signatures, following our feedback on the difficulties of obtaining wet signatures in the current circumstances.

■ Ensured that the majority of trainees and students can still sit their exams, despite the SRA’s initial intention to suspend these.

■ Lobbied the Government to amend the proposed emergency Coronavirus legislation to allow hearings under the Extradition Act 2003 to take place temporarily via a live link, as well as ensuring the Government understood the need for a sunset clause in the legislation.

■ Secured amendments to the domestic abuse gateway to reduce the evidence requirements which helped victims of domestic abuse to get emergency injunctions during lockdown.

■ Negotiated with the National Police Chiefs Council a protocol on remote attendances at the police station which has been incorporated into PACE rules.

■ Contributed to the development of a risk assessment tool showing how individual courts are implementing PHE guidance

■ Secured a range of operational changes in the legal aid system to facilitate remote working

■ Economic crime levy consultation was deferred until July.

Along with other groups, we persuaded the Treasury, British Business Bank and HMRC to:

■ Defer the reporting deadline of the EU mandatory disclosure rules (DAC 6) by six months in order to provide taxpayers and intermediaries dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 additional time to ensure they can comply with their obligations.

■ Reduce its restrictive security criteria by not seeking guarantees for loans less than £250,000 and not taking security over an applicant’s primary residence for larger loans.

■ Create a specific loan scheme for firms with turnover exceeding £45 million that are unable to access the Bank of England’s loan scheme.

■ Extend the Job Retention Scheme, leading to the extension until October and the ability to have part-time furlough.

■ Provide an emergency support grant to the Law Centres Network, the Access to Justice Foundation and other frontline charities to continue their work through the COVID-19 crisis. ■