The heather is burning in the Scots legal profession. Well, perhaps not burning, but certainly smouldering rather noticeably. Parliament is currently considering the Legal Services Bill. This is a measure which, inter alia, would allow non-lawyers to own (bits of) legal firms, so-called Alternative Business Structures (ABS).
I'm ambivalent about this measure. I can see that allowing multi-disciplinary partnerships - with, say both lawyers and accountants as principals - makes a good deal of sense. It matches the privilege such professionals already have, of instructing counsel directly, without engaging a solicitor. It would allow one-stop shop for professional services. But I'm less clear on the benefits of, say, Tesco (or less wholesome ambulance chasers) becoming principals. I don't like the fact that the bill allows the proliferation of oversight bodies; but perhaps discretion in operation will prevail (although I gather the accountants have already made a bid for oversight). Exactly how advocates will enter into partnerships, and ABS, and how that will interact with their current cab-rank rule, inability to handle client's funds, current training methods, and so on, could be complicated - especially given the small size of the Scottish bar. Could it actually mark the beginning of the end of the distinct bar? Quite possibly.
The Scottish Law Society had an AGM about the bill, last year, and decided that ABS were a neat and dandy idea. However, it seems that a lot of their membership don't actually think that at all. Or perhaps they don't like the fact that the bill also proposes introducing non-solicitors onto the Scottish Law Society council. Some have even suggested 50% non-lawyers, and a non-lawyer chair. And a few largish sub-sections - The Glasgow Bar Association, and the Writers To The Signet Society - are now rising in collective revolt against this. Or that. It's not entirely clear, really. But they are angry, anyway.
The WSS seems to want its old, pre-war, role as a representative society of solicitors back, and to remove that role from the Scottish Law Society, who are currently both a regulatory and representative body. Maybe it's just me, but that looks like a WSS land-grab. It would seem to be to make more sense to establish a new Scottish Lawyers Regulatory Body, as in England, (and leave the Scottish Law Society as the solicitors' representative body). But, in the light of the Bill, and ABS, that body would (should?) probably also be given regulatory jurisdiction over advocates, too - it would seem silly to have a separate Scottish Bar Council for just a few hundred advocates (especially as advocates are all now trained first as solicitors). But the Faculty wouldn't like that.
Interesting times.
The Scottish Law Society had an AGM about the bill, last year, and decided that ABS were a neat and dandy idea. However, it seems that a lot of their membership don't actually think that at all. Or perhaps they don't like the fact that the bill also proposes introducing non-solicitors onto the Scottish Law Society council. Some have even suggested 50% non-lawyers, and a non-lawyer chair. And a few largish sub-sections - The Glasgow Bar Association, and the Writers To The Signet Society - are now rising in collective revolt against this. Or that. It's not entirely clear, really. But they are angry, anyway.
The WSS seems to want its old, pre-war, role as a representative society of solicitors back, and to remove that role from the Scottish Law Society, who are currently both a regulatory and representative body. Maybe it's just me, but that looks like a WSS land-grab. It would seem to be to make more sense to establish a new Scottish Lawyers Regulatory Body, as in England, (and leave the Scottish Law Society as the solicitors' representative body). But, in the light of the Bill, and ABS, that body would (should?) probably also be given regulatory jurisdiction over advocates, too - it would seem silly to have a separate Scottish Bar Council for just a few hundred advocates (especially as advocates are all now trained first as solicitors). But the Faculty wouldn't like that.
Interesting times.
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