Turkey at Christmas

Is a business plan really worth it, or even necessary? Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face. So, my idea of a business plan is to try out a bunch of stuff and then hang on to what works.

The strategic aims set out by the Law Society in its three-year business plan are, however, ambitious:

• To represent the profession by speaking out for justice and on legal issues, and by being recognised as the voice of solicitors committed to shaping the legal system;

• To promote the value of using solicitors at home ?and abroad; and

• To support solicitors to develop their expertise and their businesses. 

The society, though, does things rather differently. For a start, it has a ruling council of 103 solicitors who have to agree ?with each other – no easy task when you think how diverse ?the profession has become. ?Is it realistic to expect such a large group to agree on anything? Fidel Castro would say no. He planned the revolution in Cuba with a ruling council of 82 fighters and said that if he had to do it over again, he would do so with ten and win smarter and faster.

¡Viva Fidel! for those of us who would like to see the society?’s ruling body reduced to a more manageable size. But size is not everything. The success of the plan is going to depend on originality and high-flying entrepreneurship, combined with an arsenal of ammunition to fire at the government, which, having destroyed the legal aid system, seems determined to boost competition by making it easier for supermarkets and estate agents to offer legal services.

Fidel would argue that a revolution is always a struggle to the death between the future and the past. Of course, he would also approve of the society’s policy of not inviting its whole membership to vote for its leader on the basis of one member to one vote, a practice that was abolished in the 1990s and has distanced it from its 160,000 members. These days you can become president with the support of fewer than 100 votes of members of the council.

So, how does the society’s end-of-year report card read? Something like: ‘Safety first is all very well, but we don’t want the safety net to turn into a hammock that lulls talented people into complacency and dependence.’ 

We have to learn to be brave. We have to be inventive. And we have to turn ourselves into a business that is able to live independently of the practising certificate income.

Too many lawyers think of the society as a turkey. Well, maybe it was in the past, but not any longer. Now it’s a turkey with magnificent bright plumage that deserves another chance. After all, it’s Christmas.

The society has always been a hard sell. This latest attempt at getting closer to its members was a no slam-dunk affair. It was National Basketball Association basketball star Michael Jordan who said: ‘Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.’ Well, under its new chief executive, there is no doubt about the society’s commitment to change the way it relates to its members and to make it happen.

Essentially, a business plan is ?a statement about how you are going to spend your money. ?This is what worries me about the society’s plans for the future – because the plan is based on the assumption that the present revenue flow will continue unabated. The current funding model will not survive much longer, so we need to see the plans for how the society will be remodelled to survive on selling its services in the commercial world.

The society’s vision is clear and unambiguous. It wants ‘to be valued and trusted as a vital partner to represent, promote, and support solicitors while upholding the rule of law, legal independence, ethical values, and the principle of justice for all’. But while the society is looking for love and respect, how is this going to help us practising lawyers find love?

The answer is that most of the conflicts that compel clients to get themselves a lawyer are not happy ones. Too often, bringing in a lawyer makes a bad situation even worse by causing both sides greater grief and suffering, forcing them eventually to resort to compromise and settlement.

But this is not entirely fair on us: if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

The unpopularity of lawyers matters. If you are the society, battling the government on legal aid or access to justice, you want to be able to call on the support of public opinion. Look at the response to the junior doctors’ contract dispute: everybody loves a medic.

Perhaps it’s time for a ‘love your lawyer’ bumper sticker campaign.

Christopher Digby-Bell is due to retire as a Law Society council member for the City of London. He is a past managing partner of two City law firms

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