Legal Village

The end of an era

Posted 20/07/2007 by Fiona Woolf

When I became Law Society president this time last year, I made it my task to take the lead in communicating with the profession on our progress in transforming the representative side of the Law Society and I made a public commitment to meet with representatives from the top 100 firms to take their input to see what more the Law Society could do to support them.

The year is up and I have completed the process. I have also met with partners from several mid-tier and smaller firms, as well as in-house lawyers, young solicitors, trainees and students. This has allowed me to draw together some consistent themes from the exercise.

The difficulty of retaining staff at mid-career level and the 'war for talent' was a constant theme. Almost without exception, firms see the issues around attracting and retaining the brightest and the best as a hugely important issue. The Legal Services Bill, in particular the importance of maintaining our independence, was another.

Overall, the message is that the big firms want an effective national representative body with a strong voice.  The ABS Forum and the 'Great Quality of Life Debate' on staff recruitment and job satisfaction are designed to show the leading firms that the society can take up and run with issues of interest and importance to them. We are taking these forward beyond my presidency, to maintain a continuing degree of engagement between them and the Law Society. 

On a lighter note – as I have gone out and about visiting firms, I have been keeping an informal awards lists going.  Here are the winners:

• the “Sweet Tooth” Award for the firm offering my favourite sweets: Slaughter and May
• The “Take Your Breath Away” Award for the firm with the best view from reception: Stephenson Harwood
• The “Nature” Award for the firm with the most spectacular water feature: Lovells
• The “Fiona Woolf Handbag” Award for the firm pen most easily located at the bottom of my handbag: Irwin Mitchell

My parting thought has to be what a privilege and honour it has been to lead such a vibrant profession. And with so much to recognise and celebrate, I am thrilled that the first-ever Law Society Excellence Awards will be presented this year to the leaders and innovators of the solicitors' profession. Unfortunately, they aren’t including best sweets in this years award categories.

Developed to recognise and promote excellence, awards will be presented for innovation, quality of life, equality & diversity, social responsibility, practice standards, solicitor of the year and new solicitor of the year. The awards ceremony will be a prestigious black-tie dinner in London on 25 October, 2007. More details and an entry form can be found at www.awards.lawsociety.org.uk.

It really has been an amazing experience!