PRESIDENT’S PAGE Only Connect
F
irst, I am delighted to announce the new name for our quarterly publication: “Cambridgeshire Lawyer”. After much consideration (and more than a little debate) our committee universally agreed that the new name better reflects us, not only as a local Law Society representing legal professionals across the whole of Cambridgeshire but also as a group which strives to operate under our strapline of “Stronger Together, Better Connected”. On the same theme, we all know the importance of connections and relationships in developing our own professional careers and the prospects of our firms. I am therefore delighted to announce that we have agreed terms for a twinning arrangement with the Barcelona Bar Association. I am hoping that this will be the first of several such arrangements with other bar associations across Europe, which will be to the obvious benefit of our members. Many thanks go to Melissa Barker (née de Carvalho) of Birketts for all her hard work in making this happen. We are also working on developing our relationships with the universities. The mutual benefits are self-evident as our member firms seek to plug the recruitment gaps we are all experiencing and the universities seek to improve the
Michael Frape President of Cambridgeshire Law Society
employability of their ‘customers’ (or whatever students are now called in our late-capitalism society). John Wright of Woodfines is working on this project. According to the Centre for Cities, Cambridge is, and has been for years, the most unequal city in the UK. In 2019, the top 6% of earners took home 19% of total income whilst the bottom 20% accounted for only 2% and there are areas of serious deprivation in north Cambridgeshire. Although we should rejoice in the success of Cambridge and its sub-region and our highly talented workforce, we should be ashamed of such appalling inequality. As a legal community, we should play our part in alleviating the social ills of inequality and consider how we can make our profession more socially diverse. CLS will play its part in ‘connecting’ members with each other, our legal community, and the communities around us, especially those communities most disadvantaged and excluded from society. And finally, the committee was delighted to see so many of our members at our summer garden party at Trinity Hall; the event was hugely successful and a great way to continue celebrating our 150th year.
