The Modern President

I started off this year’s Valentine’s Day on the Club Floor of the Oriental Hotel in the company of globetrotter and President of the Law Society of England and Wales, Kevin Martin, his serene looking wife, Maureen and his colleague, Hugh McDermott.

Kevin has a deep and serious demeanour. He is a smooth and incessant communicator. A consultant in the Private Client Department of Lodders law firm in the Shakespeare town of Stratford-upon-Avon, Kevin has been actively involved with the Law Society for the past 10 years. After spending two years ‘working full-time in part-time positions as Deputy Vice-President and then as Vice-President’, he started his one-year term as full-time salaried President on 14 July 2005.

When I met him later during the Law Society’s Conference, ‘Back to Basics. Forward to the Future – The Future of the Legal Profession’ on 16 February 2006, he joked with me a couple of times about his deadline for the submission of my draft article to him.

His workload as President is intense but extremely varied. ‘I have no typical day at the Law Society. My day is usually full of meetings. I travel a lot within the United Kingdom and outside for work.’ He spends most weeks in London and the remainder in his home in Coventry. His wife runs a school. ‘My sons prefer to be in jobs which do not require them to wear suits to work,’ he quips.

‘Law is a very popular option in our universities. There is an incredible growth in our legal profession. We have seen a growth rate of about 50 per cent of newly admitted solicitors in the last 10 years.’

As at 31 July 2005, there were over 120,000 solicitors in England and Wales. Seven thousand three hundred and fifty-six were admitted as solicitors during the previous year. The statistics taken in 2004 indicate that there were 9,211 law firms in England and Wales. The Law Society of England and Wales is the national body, which represents the solicitors of England and Wales. The Law Society’s international arm looks after the interests and concerns of about 3,600 solicitors practising outside the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, Kevin sees ‘great changes’ within the legal profession. Besides the traditional areas of practice, there are emerging areas of law such as music law and art history law. ‘Our employment law is evolving at such a speed that we have to re-learn it continuously. We are also flooded with legislation from Europe. There is no shortage of work.’

Sole proprietor law firms are popular in the United Kingdom. Some lawyers retire from large firms and set up sole proprietorships. Some sole proprietors even have 100-member staff. Currently 45.3 per cent of law firms are sole proprietors, while 1.6 per cent are law firms with 26 or more partners. However, they account for more than 36 per cent of solicitors in private practice. The trend indicates firms growing in size as they realise the benefits of economies of scale. The number of employed solicitors within and outside of private practice is also increasing; around 20 per cent of practitioners now work in commerce and industry or for the local government.

There has been an endless debate in the United Kingdom, perhaps as long as the debate on abolishing the monarchy, about barristers and solicitors joining together to form one profession. In the midst of the tremendous opposition from the Bar Council and the judiciary, Kevin feels that this may happen one day in the future. However, he further adds that there is no urgency for this to happen as English solicitors can now even appear before the Privy Council.

‘Our government is a major consumer of legal services. They are permanently interested in what we do. I do not think that this is healthy as the legal profession must be always independent.’ He refers to the government initiative to reform legal service delivery; they are set to take forward a programme of legislation later this year.

One of the key issues of the reform (driven by the Clementi Report) is a new structure for the regulation of legal services. Although his Law Society will continue to exercise their primary regulatory functions, they would have to report to a new body, Legal Services Board. The yet-to-be-set-up Legal Services Board will oversee the regulatory functions carried out by the Law Society and the Bar Council in England and Wales.

‘My concern is that the Legal Services Board may interfere with our regulatory function or even worse, remove our regulatory powers.’ A supporter of self-regulation, he feels that it would create a personal and collective responsibility within solicitors to maintain their high professional standards.

Before the government’s White Paper on legal reforms was issued, the Law Society reviewed their system of regulation of solicitors in 2004. The conclusion of the review was that there must be a clear distinction between the regulatory and representative functions of the Law Society. This led to the formation of the Regulation Board and the Consumer Complaints Board on 1 January 2006. These independent boards took over all the regulatory powers of the 100-member Council of the Law Society.

Pro bono work is an integral part of the English legal profession. ‘It is common for large law firms to have a pro bono unit. It is treated like any other fee-generating department with lawyers specialising in pro bono work.’ In addition, he describes the largest legal aid system in the world, which costs about two billion pounds to operate, as being in ‘a complete crisis’. According to him, solicitors doing legal aid work are not paid enough. He adds that pro bono is not, however, a substitute for a publicly funded legal aid system. Pro bono work gives solicitors an opportunity to give back to society. Whilst law firms fulfil their corporate social responsibility by doing pro bono work, the English legal profession receives good publicity and enjoys a good reputation.

When asked whether he intends to return to practice after his tenure, Kevin looked at Maureen and said that the only current plan is to take a break. He is a keen sportsman who enjoys golf, cricket, rugby, skiing and classical music. He will certainly have more time to devote to his hobbies from July 2006.

Rajan Chettiar

Rajan Chettiar & Co

E-mail: rajan@rajanchettiar.com