Decision time approaches

Only four days till polling opens, and the landscape is changing all the time.

The referendum on whether the Law Society of Scotland should continue to support alternative business structures runs from this coming Tuesday, 23 March, until 7 April, with polling online or by post. Much has been said on the subject already, but there is more to ponder.

Last night at the Society's Edinburgh ABS roadshow, for example, Minister Fergus Ewing announced that in the face of representations he would be moving to drop the "control" aspects of section 92 from the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill. These are the provisions that would have given the Scottish Government power, if not satisfied with the Society's own efforts, to prescribe a number or proportion of lay members to be appointed by the Society to its Council, and/or qualifications for some or all of these over and above the "suitability" provisions to which the section also makes the Society subject.

The extent to which that would have amounted to Government "control" and fatal loss of professional independence has been well aired. Now the debate has to shift to the difference the concession will make.

It does not of course affect the other alleged undermining of professional independence, the possibility of external ownership, in whole or in part, of legal practices - the essence of the issue for next week's SGM and the imminent referendum. And that is what the dedicated referendum page on Journal Online, to be launched today, intends to address, along with all the related issues over legal services reform and the second members' poll also requisitioned.

If last night's roadshow is anything to go by, many solicitors still have questions and concerns. What, if anything, is in it for the high street firm? Are we hastening the end of the profession as we know it? Are we really going to see supermarkets or whoever offering anything like the kind of service our clients expect? How effective will the regulation really be? Is change going to come anyway, and if so, is it better to be part of it? We hope to address all this, and more, in the coming days.

Everything is still to play for. That was demonstrated by the letter received, quite by coincidence, by the Journal yesterday. Thirteen solicitors' firms, from sole principal to Scotland's largest, have signed a letter calling on the profession to support reform in order to provide the flexibility they believe they need to compete in the market in future. It will appear on the new page along with other contributions - and all are welcome to post comments supporting or opposing the views stated, or to forward separate contributions to me for adding to the page.

I hope you will use it, whether to join the debate or simply as a source of information.