Forward thinking

Happy New Year.

For me, the clock is ticking.

On 17 December, the Society’s Council confirmed Jamie Millar as the President of the Society for 2010-11 and elected Cammie Ritchie as the incoming Vice President. Thus passed my lingering hope that a latter day Dustin Hoffman might burst into the Council room to object, at the last minute, to any change, on the grounds that I was so irreplaceable that I must be allowed an unprecedented second term. There’s gratitude for you.

More seriously, the selection of new officers sets out the shape of the future. As always, the transition of the current Vice President to the position of President-elect was largely a formality, but the new Vice President’s post was strongly contested. The reassuring thing however was that all of the Vice Presidential candidates produced personal statements with a remarkable degree of consensus: that the Society must continue its process of modernisation but also remain committed to being both the regulatory and representative arm of the solicitors’ profession in Scotland.

Cammie Ritchie has the distinction of being the first procurator fiscal elected as an officer of the Society. No institution in Scotland has changed so much, and for the better, in the 10 years since devolution than the COPFS. A much greater openness, a willingness to explain decisions and even to apologise for occasional mistakes, far from undermining the respect for an independent prosecution service, have actually enhanced its authority. Cammie now brings the insight from a central role in that process to the ongoing tasks at the Society. I am certain we will all benefit from his experience.

What are the major challenges he and Jamie will face? Well, first, they are likely to have to guide the Society as to how far we wish the permissive provisions of alternative business structures in the Legal Services Bill to be actually utilised by the Society. It should not be overlooked that, in the end, ABS will have to be framed in practice rules and that these rules will need the approval of the membership in General Meeting. The devil is likely to be in the detail. Both the Guarantee Fund and the Master Policy are important client safeguards which also bring benefit to all parts of the profession in private practice. These benefits must be preserved in any new regulatory scheme. I am confident it can be done, but it will take considerable innovative thinking in the drafting.

They are also likely to face the challenges of a new public expenditure environment. It hopefully has not escaped your notice that one of the few areas of public spending , even at this stage, to be identified for cuts in the Pre-Budget Report was the legal aid budget for England & Wales. Anyone with experience of the English legal system can certainly see inefficiencies and archaic practices that hugely contribute to the costs of dispute resolution, although it seems perverse to respond to that, not by reforming the system, but simply by denying access to it to the poor. In Scotland however per capita legal aid expenditure is already much lower than south of the border and, with the assistance of Lord Gill, there is scope for a quite different approach. It certainly must be made clear to the Scottish Government that any temptation to indulge in crude expenditure cuts in the legal aid field will not be acceptable to the Society or indeed to any section of the legal community.

Above all, however, the new officers will face the constant task of continuing to ensure that the Society and its work remains both of relevance and of assistance to an increasingly diverse profession. My own impression, admittedly a not unbiased one, is that this is an area in which we have enjoyed some greater success in recent times. Jamie Millar, both as Vice President and, before that, as treasurer, has been a key contributor to that achievement. I am sure that in Cammie he will have a loyal future ally.

I’m not yesterday’s man quite yet however. Watch out for some final initiatives from me in the spring.

More next month.