Is the Law Society fit for purpose?

The Law Society of England and Wales is recruiting a chief executive at a salary of £250,000 per year. The offer will seem attractive to those on lesser salaries such as the lord chief justice (£242,000 per year), prime minister (£142,000) or Chris Grayling (£134,565). For solicitors who, according to payscale.com, receive an average salary of £33,177 per year and owners of legal aid practices, many of whom have little but oblivion to look forward to, that offer may appear to be obscene.

At the Special General Meeting on 17 December 2013, which debated a motion of no confidence in the outgoing chief executive, one speaker said the society appeared to pay homage to the “dead white men” whose portraits hang on the walls of Chancery Lane rather than the current membership.

The profession’s diversity, the way it is structured and the work that it does has changed enormously since 1825, when the Law Society was founded by a small group of upper middle class professional white gentlemen who enjoyed a privileged position unrecognisable to today’s solicitors.

It seems questionable whether one organisation can properly represent the views of large commercial international firms charging out work to corporate multinationals at hundreds of pounds per hour on the one hand and legal aid lawyers who may earn less than £10 per hour when fixed fees are taken into account on the other.

It is well known that large and confident firms choose to bypass the Law Society and deal with government themselves wherever possible. It is also the case that almost every area of solicitors’ practice has its own pressure group or association.

Examples include the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association and Legal Aid Practitioners Group in the legal aid sphere. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the Conveyancing Association and City of London Law Society are examples of such bodies in private law cases.

They have done excellent work in representing their membership, sometimes claiming that their efforts have been hindered or undermined by the Law Society. They are,
of course, unencumbered by having to consider other branches of the profession
when arguing their corner.

What then is the need for and purpose of the Law Society? Most solicitors have few dealings with Chancery Lane. They may choose to attend there when admitted for a welcoming tea with the president of the day and should they be self-employed, they will experience the pleasure of writing a cheque to the society every time they feel the need to sneeze.

It’s unlikely they will return to Chancery Lane, unless they work so close to it they feel the need to use its cafe or bar.

Even those unfortunate enough to feel the disciplinary wrath of its regulator will not be summoned to Chancery Lane as regulatory matters are now the province of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. I believe that, for many, the society is
little more than an expensive irrelevance that absorbs 27 per cent of every solicitor’s practising certificate fee.

Perhaps the time has come for the society to question its existence. There may be a case for voluntary membership, although the benefits are not immediately apparent.

There may be the need for modest legislative changes to require government to seek the views of the regulator rather than the society. Almost certainly there would be an interesting debate as to what should come of the society’s assets.

A change of chief executive and president offers an excellent opportunity to have that debate. However, the fact that the society’s membership has not been consulted on the level of remuneration the incumbent will receive makes such a
debate unlikely.

Having been employed at a rate much in excess of all other senior officials in the justice system and government,
who would wish to bring
about the destruction of
their position?

James Parry is a partner at Parry Welch Lacey Solicitors
 

SJ has offered the Law Society the right of reply