HI everyone. I have not blogged for ages – a combination of giant amounts of extra work due to my impending vice-presidency (the minute they know you’re elected they want you to speak at their conference, meeting, dinner, seminar), and also an unusual hesitation on my part as to what to say in the midst of the internecine disputing and catcalling within some reaches of the Society and its works.

You’re reading this, so you’ve kept up to date with The Firm’s breaking stories around the legal aid cuts negotiations and the Access to Justice committee events. In my formal capacity as VP-elect it would be totally wrong of me to take sides, to break confidences or to express a substantive view on any of the issues – anyone I criticise hasn’t the same right of reply that I have, and one always runs the risk of quoting a colleague, a rival or a stranger in such a way that the quote is taken out of context, and is so incomplete as to twist the meaning completely, e.g. like Ian Smart’s very misleading half-quote about the unwritten rule of legal aid admin expenses elsewhere on this site. The full quote tells a very different, and very positive/protective story for Glasgow /legal aid lawyers. Come on editor – you’ve clearly seen the whole leaked email – print the rest of the quote. Context is everything. The lay reader needs the respect of both sides and not just propaganda.[*]

It is a weird situation – I had, and hope I still have good personal relationships with many of the main players on both sides (by which I don’t mean I have bad relationships with others – just that there are some I know well and the rest not so well), but I have come in for a share of the criticism being sprayed around. That is fair enough – I have sought high office so you have to take what goes with the territory, and if someone says I am wrong, I can either admit it, contest and so put it, or them, right. It is just sad that on many occasions the debate has strayed away from the facts, and got bogged down in the boondocks of motive – and worse, personality. Personal insults and accusations have littered some of the exchanges, and I believe this does two things: it makes it increasingly difficult to maintain a technical or substantive dialogue knowing the other person has called you a name or questioned your integrity; and it looks hellish to the punters outside the profession gaping on. Indeed it probably does a third thing – if the ongoing negotiations on legal aid, ABS, breakaway factions, regulation v. representation are a contest of any sort between us in the profession and the government of Scotland and its agents like the Scottish Legal Aid Board, then it’s not a question of divide and rule – it is the establishment sitting up on the hilltop leisurely watching us tearing our Balkans apart unilaterally before their very eyes.

As it happens I don’t think the governing bodies of this country are in it for world domination. They are in the main devotees of my favourite client’s saying “ ye get mair wi’ sugar than ye dae wi s***”. Ok, everyone has an agenda, states default to domination mode, but the government’s ambition is not to destroy or hog-tie the legal profession for the sake of it.

And for the moment, the Law Society of Scotland still holds the ring. It is the statutory body charged with a legal (and inescapable) responsibility for protecting the public as well as the profession, and as long as it can explain itself and act with honour and duty, I am content to march on to the new constitution and continue to do those twin things of representation and regulation in a more modern way. Once I am in office, I will assuredly assist the President in being as inclusive as I/we can be, and if there are brickbats, I will make sure that they miss, in terms of the manner of my tenure of office.

I have a very close friend who is an architect, and like me has been involved in committees and special projects, in his case for RIAS. He has been asked to stand for its council but has not taken that step so far. He was genuinely interested in the press reporting of our recent history, and when we talked through the issues, not only did he “get” it – the questions and stresses for solicitors are very like many of those faced by our set-square and wellies friends - but fundamentally he agreed that one body for all solicitors is a treasure of high price and worth keeping, at least until the people of Scotland say otherwise.

Anyway, that’s as political as I get. I regret the bloodletting – though if truth be told it is localised both geographically and in terms of subject-matter. I now spend time speaking to solicitors and groups and faculties all over the country. In relative calm in so many places faced with plenty of challenges, there is still a basic willingness to work together for mutual protection and improvement. And that’s what I want to nurture and champion when I get into position.

Perhaps like me you are a fan of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which, for all its tabloid tawdriness, is a fascinating glimpse into a previously shaded world. And one thing that struck me is that among the mixture of various ancient and modern traditions, the blood feud is still sadly alive and well, with families remembering slights and fights for generations, causing corrosion and conflict til the last syllables of recorded time, or at least for every Appleby Horse fair.

But that said, I am an optimist, and while some harsh and unfair things have been said, I believe in two things – pragmatism, and collegiality. As solicitors we are paid to find answers to clients’ problems and questions, so why can’t we do the same for ourselves; and ultimately, there is more that binds us than can ever divide us, and I would hope that each solicitor would, putting the past to one side, always want to go to a solution that is in the greater good of the profession, rather than to do down any colleague. I know some have accused the Society itself of not upholding that principle, but they are wrong.

And that very point brings me back round to misquotes and misrepresentations. When you know, acknowledge and tell the whole story, motivation and context become clear. So if I make one plea, it is to avoid partiality, selection of recollection, and manipulation of the history. Don’t be economical with the truth. In fact, now that I come to think about it, don’t lawyers have a saying about the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Austin

[*] Editor's Note: Ian Smart was offered a column in The Firm to articulate his position in his own words on the record, but has declined.