This consultation response is in summary form, but if so advised we can provide further detail and comment.

We believe that any consultation on changes to the governance structure of the Law Society of Scotland (‘LSS’) must take place after Stage 3 of the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill; given this Bill has a direct impact on the subject matter of any such consultation.

Further, we believe it would have been helpful and inclusive to have consulted with members on the ‘high level’ principles of what they would like to see from their professional body in order to establish a framework for reform; as opposed to re-writing the constitution and standing orders (CSO) and asking for comments on a draft document. For example, it is difficult to suggest new approaches to doing things, when one already has a revised structure.

The high level principles that we believe should drive and inform constitutional change include the following:

As the LSS is a membership based organisation its members must have the ability to properly engage in key decisions of the organisation and must be able to hold their governing body to account. At present that does not happen very well.
Such engagement and accountability must not be illusory or theoretical. At present engagement can often be illusory and pointless e.g. the SGM motion procedure.

The governance of the LSS should be transparent and democratic; it should not elitist, bureaucratic, and exclusive.
Importantly, as regards matters solely related to representing the interest of solicitors, such matters must be confined to solicitors, and solicitors alone as a matter of principle, fairness, and having regard to article 11 of the ECHR. In contrast, regulatory matters must have a consumer/solicitor split in the public interest, and the practice has been a 50/50 split (which is better than the committees of EU institutions which typically include no more than one third of consumers). Representation issues are akin to a trade union interest, and the inclusion of employers on the board of a trade union would be ridiculous. Likewise, the inclusion of non-solicitors is not habile where solicitors are representing issues personal to themselves as ‘workers’.

Looking at the key draft changes to the CSO, it is with deep regret that Govan Law Centre notes these would do little or nothing to promote the high level principles that we have summarised in paragraph 4. Instead, the key changes would regress the position of the current CSO. In short, the changes proposed would make it significantly more difficult for ordinary members to engage or hold their organisation to account, or influence its policy. There can be no justification for this approach, and we note no cogent case has been made to justify this approach.

Govan Law Centre is concerned that very few firms or solicitors appeared to have engaged in this consultation process and for that reason, and the reasons noted in paragraph 2 and 3 above, we believe this consultation process should be commenced afresh as a two-stage process. Firstly, allowing members to identify the high level principles that a 21st century governance structure should aim to achieve; and secondly, taking those high level principles as a framework, and drafting a new CSO from them, and thereafter consulting on that draft CSO.


Mike Dailly
Principal Solicitor


Govan Law Centre
Orkney Street Enterprise Centre
18-20 Orkney Street
Glasgow
G51 2BZ

23 July 2010