The questions posed by the Glasgow Bar Association to the Law Society over the formation of the Esto Law venture are to remain unanswered until the completion of the Law Society’s own investigations into the affair, according to the GBA’s account of a recent meeting between the two bodies.

It has also emerged that a successor team to the Society’s now disbanded Legal Aid Negotiating Team, from whom the majority of Esto Directors was drawn, has not yet been constituted.

An account of the meeting, which took place earlier this month has been made public by the Glasgow Bar Association, who had strongly challenged the Society over the establishment of the Esto venture, and queried the extent of the discussions that had taken place between the Society, the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Esto members prior to the company’s formation.

“It is the Law Society’s position that they do not have the power to order an independent enquiry. The only mechanism for an independent enquiry is where there is a direct allegation of criminal offences,” the GBA said in their account of the meeting.

“They advised that if the formation of Esto Law was made the subject of a formal complaint against one or any of the Directors, then that would go to the Complaints Commission and would be referred back to the Law Society for investigation by their professional investigation team.”

The outstanding questions over Esto were -according to the GBA’s account of the meeting-  scheduled to be answered “as openly as possible” by the time of Friday’s Law Society Council Meeting on 27th January.

“There may be some matters that they will not be in a position to respond to if they involve third parties and if there are issues of confidentiality or data protection,” the GBA said.

The Law Society have not yet published their responses, and no account of the Council meeting is yet available.

The GBA also said that Oliver Adair’s role as Convener of the Legal Aid Committee was now untenable.

“We made it clear that any suggestion that he would hand pick a new body of people to be on LANT would be utterly unacceptable, not only to Glasgow but across the country,” the GBA said.

“We advised that feelings remained very high on this and not just in Glasgow.”

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30 January Update:

The Law Society's investigation has not yet concluded, and the timeframe for its completion of 27th January has not been met. The investigation is said to be "ongoing" according to a report from the Council meeting.