Members will decide

Over to the floor

By the time you read this, the consultation period for the discussion paper on alternative business structures will have come to an end. The Council will now analyse the responses before discussing and agreeing its view on the best way forward for solicitors and their businesses.

During the consultation process, we have been developing thinking within a working group whose members are from a cross section of the profession. The task of that group is to identify options on which the Council might base a white paper to the profession, indicating the preferred way forward. In formulating those options, the group will test their provisional views against the consultation responses. The white paper will also be the subject of a debate at the annual general meeting on 22 May.

It is vital that members of the Society play a central role in our policy development process. That is why we produced the consultation document, and why the final decision must rest with the profession at AGM.

The same principles apply to the preparation of a new statement of the standards of conduct and service that we believe should govern Scotland’s solicitor profession. These standards will also be used in the future by the new Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Again, Council will put forward a preferred policy option to the members, allowing them to form and give their views before the matter goes to the special general meeting of the profession in the autumn.

New relations

In January, the new Commission became a reality. There is a plethora of issues to be resolved before the Commission actually opens its doors in the autumn. I am confident that we can develop a working relationship that allows mutual respect for our different functions and for obligations to be maintained.

Council summit

Both ABS and standards are, as you may possibly be tired of being told, important issues that have arisen during a time of considerable change. But when I talk of the members of the Society being involved through consultation and otherwise, I am also touching on a separate and equally important issue that will almost certainly develop further in 2008.

The Society embarked on an exercise in April last year designed to improve its approach to strategy and governance; governance of course covers the way in which we make policy, fulfil our duties, keep within our mandate and run as an organisation. The way we involve and consult our members is naturally under consideration. Our purpose is to safeguard the democracy of the Society and ensure that it is fit to meet the challenges and demands we face now and in the future.

Council will look specifically at these issues at a meeting at the end of February. At that meeting Council will consider, discuss and progress the work of the strategy and governance groups. One of the meeting’s aims is to agree the best possible way for the Society to engage and communicate with the profession.

Track record

Fortunately, in approaching these issues we can look at a profession and a Society that has a successful track record and great strengths.

The current success of the Society is in large part because of the considerable contribution that Douglas Mill has brought to bear over the past 11 years. Last month he announced that he would be leaving the Society in the autumn. Even though it will be some months before he departs to take up new challenges, it is important that I put on record the immense debt of gratitude owed to him by the profession for all the hard work he has done on their behalf.