Farewell to Michael Williams

Councillor Michael Williams

Although, as some of you already know, I was initially reluctant to accept my accidental election to the Law Society Council, I am actually very pleased it happened and have enjoyed my six or so years on Council. My service has been made all the more enjoyable by the fact that the Derby and District Law Society Committee is such a friendly group, and that your Society is doing such an excellent job to serve its members. This is not always the case in other parts of the Country.

A lot more needs to be done to inform solicitors of what the Law Society can and, more particularly, cannot do. The Legal Services Act established the current arrangements whereby the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was set up as an independent regulatory body paid for by solicitors out of their practising certificate fees. The SRA is not controlled by the Law Society. For instance, indemnity insurance is a regulatory matter and therefore the Law Society cannot by law take over and run the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF), despite the fact that this would be the obvious solution to the present impasse. It is hoped that the SRA will allow things to be sorted out in the next 12 months.

It is the SRA that is responsible for admission to the profession and has produced the new Qualifying Exam. Some notice has been taken of the objections raised by the Law Society and various academic bodies, but the final decisions and implementation rest with the SRA.

It is therefore very important that people understand the distinction between the Law Society and the SRA and do not blame the former for matters over which it has no control.

There is a lot the Law Society can and does do. This has been particularly apparent during the pandemic when the Society has had major input into Government in respect of the issues affecting solicitors eg. execution of documents, court safety and practice, and pressing to improve areas where the system is defective.

There is continual input into legislation by briefing MPs and Peers on the implications of Parliamentary bills and you would be surprised at the number of occasions when the Society’s views are mentioned favourably in debate.

I would also single out the regular updating of practice guidance to the profession and the work of specialist committees which bring a very high level of expertise for the benefit of the profession.

Above all, the profession needs a strong voice from a representative body which can speak up for all solicitors in England and Wales, wherever they practice and whatever sort of work they do.

One of the greatest threats the Society faces is the possibility that it will lose the practising certificate income. Government could decide that this income should simply go to the SRA, the Legal Services Board and the Ombudsman. These are of course areas over which solicitors have no control. The Law Society does have statutory obligations in respect of the rule of law and on that basis the present situation is justified but lawyers do not have many friends in high places and the days when the Lord Chancellor was a senior lawyer, quasi independent of the Government of the day, are gone. Since Tony Blair attempted to abolish the position, we have had a succession of minor ministers in the role, several of whom had no legal qualification or understanding whatsoever (eg. Liz Truss and “enemies of the people”).

If the practising certificate income was lost, the Law Society would be dependent on voluntary subscription, and with the best will in the world when times are hard it is always discretionary expenditure that is cut. We therefore have to get across the message that the Law Society is essential and the profession needs its help and support.

That is all background. The purpose of this article is to flag up to you issues upon which I think all the profession needs to concentrate, and to warn of ideas that I think would be detrimental and should be resisted. I do not pretend to have all the answers.

The main problem is apathy as we saw when there was a poll last year on changes to the Law Society Council in which less than 7% of the profession bothered to vote. A derisory turnout of this kind plays into the hands of a small well organised group. It was mainly the junior lawyers who proposed that noone should serve on Council for more than 12 years. I think this change will come to be regretted because, although it affects only a very small number of people, they are the ones with the invaluable experience and knowledge. They have seen the mistakes that have been made in the past and are in a position to attempt to stop them occurring again. It must be remembered that if a group meets only several times a year, it does take some time to familiarise yourself with the issues, never mind the details. Only in the last 2 or 3 years have I felt I knew enough to comment sensibly on various matters of great importance to the profession.

You might like to bear in mind the following points:1. The temptation to hold meetings remotely should be resisted. This may have worked perfectly well during the pandemic and does save time and cost. There is however no substitute in my view for face to face meetings and in particular, you cannot get to know new people remotely. Email is not the be all and end all whatever people say.

A recent statistic produced to the Council

Membership Committee from which I have just retired retired, showed that of out of 20 million emails sent out by the

Law Society, 14 million were unopened.

Teams and Zoom are very helpful but we must meet in person on a regular basis.

2. It should be regarded as an essential part of every Council member’s job to engage with his or her constituents. This will inevitably happen mainly through local Law Societies and so it is important that these thrive locally. The picture throughout the Country is very mixed. There are those who would like to reduce the size