AGM report

The badge of solicitor is one which is held in high esteem, but it requires the commitment of the whole profession to ensure that that continues, Ruthven Gemmell, President of the Law Society of Scotland, claimed in his address to the Society’s AGM last month.

The President was commenting on the need for solicitors to adopt and work to universal standards in preparation for the coming of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Otherwise, he warned, the Commission would be likely to begin setting its own standards, as the Financial Ombudsman Service was now doing in its field where advisers’ practice was uncertain or unclear.

Naturally enough, the President spent some time on the legislation creating the Commission, which had been in progress during most of the previous year. The efforts of the Society’s bill team, which had put in “countless hours of work”, and the ordinary members who had contacted their MSPs or the Justice 2 Committee, had between them achieved considerable success in amending the bill, including provisions to safeguard the profession’s independence – though it was surprising that the Society had even needed to make the point of how fundamental this was.

On a more general note he added that improvements in communication remained a high priority for the Society: “There is a perception that we are still too reticent in publicising the good work done” within the Society and its many committees. Opportunities were there, through email communications with members, the Journal Online – “an enormous success” – and the Journal itself, the awards for which since its redesign last June “speak for themselves”.

Looking ahead again, “The immediate future for the Society is now clearer, but the process of reform hasn’t stopped.” The Society will continue to keep before the Scottish Executive issues identified but not yet resolved, and work to ensure that Scottish firms are not put at a competitive disadvantage when alternative business structures are introduced in England & Wales.

And he promised that the Society is reviewing its own strategy, through a dedicated team which has already met to further the Society’s aim “to provide excellence in an efficient and innovative professional body”.