Page 5 - Messenger Sep 2017

5 President’s Column 5
From the President
Before setting off on my summer holiday, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting at Chancery Lane with Joe Egan and Paul Ten- nant OBE, the President and Chief Executive of the Na- tional Law Society respec- tively, along with representatives of the Joint Five Law Societies (Birming- ham, Bristol, Leeds, Liver- pool and Manchester). This meeting with the Joint V is now an annual event and reflects the importance of the group in the eyes of the NLS. I certainly found it a very useful forum for us to engage with the NLS, to better understand what it has achieved in the year and its focus going forward.
I was particularly interested to hear from Paul Tennant who has a reassuringly busi- ness-like approach. Having stabilised the Society in the wake of Catherine Dixon's departure, and tackled the governance of the organisa- tion, Paul now has his sights set on transforming the So- ciety to make it fit for the 21st century.
Paul appears to have spent a lot of time working with
NLS Council members and staff to define the purpose, vision and goals for the So- ciety and is now focusing on the internal culture of the organisation in an effort to remove any barriers to achieving its goals. Accord- ing to Paul, his overarching aim is to increase the im- pact of NLS whilst reducing the cost of doing so. Who could argue with that?
During the course of the meeting we heard from a number of the very high cal- ibre staff at NLS who gave an overview of their work which includes lobbying across a range of stakehold- ers, responding to numer- ous consultations and inputting into government policy formulation.
It is clear from what they told us that there is an awful lot of work going on behind the scenes promoting the UK legal system and the profession to counter the potentially damaging im- pact of Brexit, and the dan- ger of foreign legal centres using this as an opportunity to undermine England and Wales as the jurisdiction of choice. This work has in-
cluded meeting with am- bassadors and providing them with the ammunition to fly the flag for our legal system abroad.
As you would expect, the NLS is actively engaged with the SRA in respect of proposed deregulation and changes to the route to qualification. The SRA be- lieves that such proposals will encourage competition which will ultimately bring down costs for consumers. Whilst cheaper legal serv- ices is an admirable aim, re- moving regulation will inevitably expose con- sumers to unpalatable risks. Such proposals represent a real threat to the profession as it not difficult to envisage that, in time, the absence of the protections provided by current regulations will lead to consumers being let down without recourse to the benefits of, for example, indemnity insurance. Sto- ries of consumers losing out due to poor legal services could easily attract negative press coverage and eventu- ally this will undermine the public's belief in the quality and integrity of the profes- sion.
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Ironically, these are the
qualities the Government is
so anxious to promote inter-
nationally. Nevertheless, the
SRA seems prepared to
compromise those hall-
marks in the name of com-
petition. The NLS can and is
doing a great deal to tem-
per the proposals brought
forward by the SRA. How-
ever, the potential impact
on the solicitor brand is
such that we all have a part
to play in responding to
consultations to underline
to the SRA that we, as a pro-
fession, value and wish to
preserve existing regula-
tions as they underpin our
brand. Jon Hainey
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Turning to local matters, the MLS officers and I recently met with Joanne Roney OBE the new Chief Executive of Manchester City Council. As many of you will be aware, Joanne took up her new post shortly before the tragic events at the Arena. Her response and that of the Council appeared to me to be perfectly judged and early signs are very positive as to how she will lead the Council going forward.
I was extremely pleased to
hear that Joanne is keen to work with us to promote the profession and the wider professional services offered in the city. Joanne fully appreciates that the legal sector is a very strong proposition and one which is regarded jealously by other regional cities. With Joanne at the helm I am hopeful that we will be able to work more closely with the Council in the future to promote the profession and make further inroads in at- tracting clients and work
historically serviced out of London and other regions of the UK.
It's been a busy month and there is more that I would like to add, but I'll leave it there for now as I've proba- bly said enough and it's ex- tremely tricky typing an article like this on an iPhone on a beach in Portugal!
Jon Hainey President