Jade Gani addresses the AGM. Law Society chief executive (centre) and outgoing president Mark Evans watch on
The question of whether solicitors should hold a vote of no confidence in the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) remains up in the air following an impassioned debate at yesterday’s Law Society annual general meeting.
Solicitors running small firms spoke about how the SRA’s changes to the compliance officer rules would put them out of business.
SME & Boutique Law Firm Alliance co-founder Jade Gani was given 10 minutes to outline its concerns about the SRA and support for a vote of no confidence, saying 92% of those who had responded to its consultation on having one had backed it.
But meeting chair Mark Evans – who handed over the Law Society presidency to Brett Dixon at the end – was adamant that the society’s bye-laws did not allow new business like this to be introduced at the AGM without sufficient notice.
Ms Gani said: “A representative body cannot claim to be the voice of the profession if the profession must fight to use its own voice. We have a right to scrutinise. We have a right to challenge. We have a right to disagree. Serious concerns raised by the profession should not be silenced by bureaucracy…
“Some have lost confidence in the SRA; others believe it can improve. Both positions deserve a hearing, because though our members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the vote of no confidence, we respect the minority too. This is about giving members a choice.”
Ms Gani sought alternatively “a formal commitment” from the Law Society council to review the progress made at its meeting in December and debate whether it wanted to call a special general meeting. There was no response to this from the office-holders.
At the start of the 90-minute debate, Mr Evans highlighted the appointment of Carolyn Corby as the new chair of the SRA.
A regular theme from members of the council who spoke was that, with a new chair as well as a chief executive in Sarah Rapson who was willing to engage with the profession’s concerns and had paused the reforms, this was not the time for a move as aggressive as a vote of no confidence in the regulator.
Ms Gani said the profession had reached “a defining moment” where it had to ask the question: “Who guards the guards? It is an age-old question, one that goes to the very heart of accountability and the exercise of power…
“Accountability cannot operate in one direction. If the SRA expects us to answer for every penny and every failure, it must answer for its own.”
She highlighted how approximately 1,660 firms, including 431 sole owner-manager firms, would be hardest hit by the compliance officer reforms and criticised the SRA for failing to contact them directly and for embedding major changes within a wider client money consultation.
“Let us not forget, it was under Sarah Rapson’s leadership that the SRA considered it appropriate to advance these changes with potentially serious consequences for smaller firms,” she said.
Council member Sarah Sargeant responded: “It’s important that we actually allow the SRA time to now deal with this and to have a fresh start with them…
“We have to trust the executive team that we have here at the Law Society. They are driving this forward [and] we have to go forward at a strategic pace. I believe the SRA are listening.”
Former Law Society president Linda Lee, however, said she was “not in any way persuaded… that we should allow the SRA a fresh start”. There had been “fresh start after fresh start” since its formation in 2007 but “no improvement”.
She went on: “They have no proposals to improve matters and they do not have the confidence of the profession.”
Ms Lee urged the Law Society to commission an independent review “into the extent and cause of professional distrust in the SRA” and also backed the call for a no confidence vote.
“I’d ask us members of the council to think very carefully about how we proceed from this point and how we gain the confidence of people who are struggling under very, very significant problems created for them by the SRA in what is a harsh environment anyway.”
Beverley Watkins, the council member for Bristol, said she had “great respect” for the Law Society but none for the SRA. “What does the pause mean?” she asked. “[The proposals] should never be put on the table in the first place.” If they were not dropped, “so many firms are going to go under”, she warned.
Essex council member Karen Dovaston said the changes would be “disastrous” for her firm and that she had signed the Alliance’s open letter objecting to them.
“I was really heartened to see the pause announced. I’ve heard Sarah Rapston speak to council on a number of occasions. I’ve spoken to her personally on a number of occasions as well. And I have great hope for her being able to change the culture within the SRA…
“I don’t agree that it’s the right time now to pass a motion of any type to say that we do not have faith in the SRA. I prefer the diplomacy that we have at the moment with a keen eye being kept on the time that we allow for that change to happen rather than the effective punch in the face. I think that there is room for us to get a better relationship with our regulator…
“I say we give [the Law Society executive] a discrete [amount of] time to do it and if they don’t come up to snuff, then we take further action.”
Rounding off the debate, Mr Dixon said: “I don’t want anyone to think that we don’t recognise the strength of feeling among small firms, sole practitioners and other members. We understand that some of these concerns extend beyond the proposed [compliance role] changes, that they reflect wider questions about the SRA’s regulatory approach, decision making and engagement with the profession.
“We have heard those concerns very clearly and we share the objective of ensuring that regulation is both proportionate and evidence based.
“What I can say to you following the discussion at council yesterday is that it’s not the view of the elected body that represents all of the membership, that a motion of no confidence would be an effective campaigning approach. It could in fact be counterproductive.”
He said the Law Society would continue to press the SRA “for a clear timetable for the next stage of work [on the compliance reforms], recognition that the current proposals require change, and meaningful involvement of affected parts of the profession in developing alternative proposals.”
But he added: “We’ve been encouraged by the willingness of the SRA’s new leadership to listen and act when it got things wrong, including its decision to rethink the compliance officer measures.”
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