Back to a new normal and Council report

ARTICLE

Back to a new normal and Council report

Everyone will have their own perspective on work life balance as the country emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic and successive lockdowns. There are expert studies suggesting that there has been an acceleration to more remote working in industries where there will be no going back, and that some occupations will change forever. The position is acknowledged to be more complicated where work demands closer engagement with suppliers, customers and clients and many types of legal work do fall within that category. There is also the unanswered question as to whether remote working is more efficient or effective than organisational or social working in groups. No doubt contracts of employment are being recalibrated and this is set to continue over the coming year or two as the true impact of what has occurred emerges.

The return to work in the profession is by no means universal and many remain reluctant to meet collectively or even socially. For example, our own Middlesex Law Society Committee has not been active and whilst occasional online events can be useful remote meetings are generally not found to be as satisfactory as live face-to-face events.

The national Law Society has itself adapted to providing more online courses and has held a number of Council and Committee and other online events. Last year's Annual General Meeting was attended by many times more than the customary number of around 100. This year's General Meeting was hybrid and extremely interesting as members in the room were able to interact and those online were also in a position to contribute.

There was extremely lively debate around a private member resolution that objected to the SRA decision concerning the closure of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund. This was carried and the meeting also adopted a Council statement that it would accept that the decision relating to the continuation of the Fund was a regulatory matter to be determined by the SRA. Further the Society committed to working with the SRA to facilitate the extension of SIF and confirmed its belief that it is in the interests of the profession and the wider public that affordable, professional indemnity insurance continues at the end of the mandatory six-year run-off period.

This year's AGM also marked a turning point for the future of the Law Society Council. More than 50 member seats were up for election and 20 council members having served for more than 12 years were disqualified from returning. The 61 geographic seats have been reorganised to reduce their total number by 15 and replaced by the creation of 15 new seats to represent specified work and community sectors.

Unfortunately, the databases available to the Law Society have not proved complete and it was not possible to finalise some of the elections and those have been deferred until next year.

For the constituency of Central and South Middlesex the geographic boundaries have been altered and slightly extended to increase coverage for the new seat for North West London. The postcodes covered are:

HA0-9 NW2 NW4 NW6-7 NW9-11 TW1-8TW11-18 UB1-11 UB18 W3-5 W7 W12-13 N2-3 N12 N20 EN4-5

A new Council Member will be elected to represent this constituency in next year's elections. The constitution of the Middlesex Law Society is wide enough to cover the extended geographic area and membership remains open to any who wish to belong.

COUNCIL REPORT

Having served as Council Member for Central and South Middlesex since 2005 I will be leaving the Council at the next annual meeting to be held in October 2022. A new council member will by then have been elected to represent North West London. It is crucial to the ability of the Law Society to function well and lead the profession whilst adapting to meet the everchanging needs of members that experienced members stand for election where they believe they have interest and skills or in other ways contribute in some way to the work of the Council or its Committees.

During my period of tenure the advice and support from members has been a source of knowledge and encouragement enabling views to be strongly represented and issues to be confidently raised to meet the needs of practising members of the profession.

I reflect upon the period since 2007, when the Legal Services Act 2007 was passed and believe it has brought change that has been to some extent liberating to those members wanting ever more deregulation but, in many ways, traumatic and perhaps damaging to the standing and values of our profession through unintended consequences. The early years of the Solicitors Regulation Authority were marked by difficult discussions concerning areas of responsibility and reluctance on the part of the regulator to work within guidelines that took account of the respective roles of the regulator and representative body laid down in the Act.

In more recent times the Legal Services Board has become more political and activist. It has encouraged the SRA to further unpick elements of the regulatory structure without full regard for unintended or perhaps intended consequences. This is a threat to the standing of the profession and the trust placed in it by the public.

The models of practice have been deregulated, there is pressure to unbundle services and automate them and the full public protection through insurance is repeatedly questioned. A majority of solicitors are now female and under 45 and around one quarter of the profession now works in organisations which are not solicitor firms. The traditional law firm is not a popular model, and the modern profession demands narrower responsibility, high wages and work/life balance.

As this process continues there are difficulties arising over ethical values and the boundaries for professional privilege and other conflicts of interest.

Indeed, the recent Postmasters case highlights some of the difficulties where professional obligations come under pressure from commercial interests. Even the efficacy of a solicitors undertaking has recently come into focus.

A recent initiative by the Legal Services Board has been to introduce new Internal Governance Rules. These required the structural separation of the SRA along with control of the process for approval of annual funding from the profession that enables activities of the SRA and the Society.

Accordingly, all SRA operations have this year been transferred from the Law Society to a separate company which is in the process of being registered as a charity organisation. This will doubtless give rise to further tensions and difficulties in the future.

The budget constraints are of continuing concern as the budget for the coming year has been capped at the same amount for the third year. The PCF (Practice Fee Application) is prepared separately by the SRA and the Society and the LSB is now applying new and strict rules over the way in which applications must be prepared and the way in which they will be considered for approval. Indeed, it is now made almost impossible for the Law Society to increase its share of the practice fee income unless this has been forecast and notified three years in advance. These constraints may well need to be addressed further in coming years.

Meanwhile the Legal Services Board openly states that it has ambitions to change the sector. The LSB oversees 15 approved regulators and yet its sector wide strategy for reshaping legal services ranges far beyond and well into the world of unregulated services and their providers. One is led to question whether or not this is a legitimate role under the Legal Services Act or rather whether this should be a matter for parliament to legislate.

The budgetary constraints on the Law Society are now very real. The Society has worked with an allocation of about £28m which is under severe strain from pandemic disruption, wage inflation and the high cost of maintaining online services. The costs of the programme of capital investment in technology and updating the premises at 113 Chancery Lane have not been recovered and further investment is needed. The Society will be publishing a Reserves Policy and it seems likely that funds will be needed to ensure that the organisation remains viable and has the resources it needs to support its offering to members.

With the benefit of the new technology offers for training and new accreditations are being developed and it is to be hoped that this activity which is very much of the essence of a good membership organisation will be allowed to survive. ■

Michael Garson

Michael Garson

Law Society Council and Board Member