News In Focus
16 March 2010
Keep profession united, Jack urges
Solicitors critical of the Law Society of Scotland's dual roles of regulating and representing the profession should beware of the law of unintended consequences, according to the Society's Chief Executive Lorna Jack.
In newspaper and magazine articles today Ms Jack argues that the outcome of a split might not be the continuance of the Society as a regulatory body, as those supporting a split appear to assume.
The Chief Executive was responding to the requisition for a referendum on whether the Society should continue to perform both roles if proposed reforms under the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill go through.
Pointing out that the change would require legislation, she claims that the easiest course for the Government would be to hand regulatory functions over to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, which would please the consumer lobby but "remove a huge amount of control from the profession and hand it to a Government agency – and that could be a serious own goal".
A similar split in England, she adds, has proved unpopular and created new problems.
Appealing for the profession to remain united, Ms Jack states that "If it breaks up, the very badge of what it is to be a Scottish solicitor might be lost." The public did not want to see lawyers fighting each other, but sorting thngs out and working to deliver excelent services.
In response, Mike Dailly of Govan Law Centre has posted an online comment claiming that the Society itself is reaping the unintended consequences of its support for a "flawed", consumer lobby-based approach to legal services which puts wealth ahead of access to justice. The way forward, he argues, is to combine the Society and the Complaints Commission in a new, slimmed down regulator, with representation left to existing professional associations and new networks.