As the professional body for solicitors, every week the Law Society is working hard to influence the legal and regulatory environment on behalf of our profession and to promote solicitors at home and abroad. We support practice excellence, are an informed source of legal sector news and support members at every stage of their career.
 
Here are some highlights from our work this week.
 
Influencing on behalf of the profession and promoting the profession
 
The Law Society’s media profile this week:
 
The Guardian ran an editorial on Monday calling on legal aid cuts to be reversed and cited our judicial review of the government’s LGFS decision.
 
The SRA’s deregulation proposals were sent to the LSB and our response to the proposals was covered in the Gazette, Today’s Conveyancer, Legal Futures & New Law Journal
 
I was quoted in the Times calling for more coherent tax laws as consumers are losing out due to increasingly complex rules. Kieran Bowe from the wills & equity committee and Sarah Dwight from the conveyancing and land law committee were also quoted.
 
Criminal law committee member Greg Stewart was quoted in another seven regional papers on the recidivism of young offenders including the Telegraph & Argus, St. Helen’s Star, Runcorn and Widnes World, Kent Messenger, Barry and District News, Cambrian News & Salisbury Journal
 
Council member Peter Wright spoke to the Daily Telegraph about firms cybersecurity responsibilities under the new Data Protection Act.
 
I was quoted in Legal Week discussing contingency plans for Brexit, including solicitors registering in Ireland. This story also ran in American Lawyer.
 
Don’t forget you can read all Law Society press releases by clicking on this link. For live updates follow us on Twitter.
 
Consultation responses and parliamentary activity, influencing on behalf of the profession:
 
LGFS
We won the judicial review brought against the Government and as a result the LGFS regulations have been quashed.  Our case was won on both procedural unfairness and irrationality.  Further details are set out in our press release. 
 
Family law
Penny Scott, chair of the family law committee, has co-signed a letter from Resolution calling for the Government to introduce legal protections for cohabiting couples.  The letter will be published in the Guardian on 18th August, the most popular date for weddings in 2018. 
 
HMCTS court access pilot
On 9th August, HMCTS announced a pilot scheme for speeding up access to courts for lawyers. The courts taking part in the pilot are Brighton Magistrates’ Court, Maidstone Combined Court; Southwark Crown Court, Tameside Magistrates’ Court and Wood Green Crown Court. Local court managers will be contacting firms in those areas about how to register for the pilot, which will open in September.
 
Public order offences guidelines
We responded to the Sentencing Council’s consultation on guidelines for public order offences.  Our response welcomes the clarification that being under the influence of alcohol or drugs is an aggravating factor and comments on the aggravation of other offences in the context of a riot. We also comment on the need to avoid ‘double counting’ where additional offences are charged.  Our full response is available here. 
 
Parliamentary
Parliament remains closed for the summer recess until September.
 
Meetings
On Wednesday, Deputy Vice President Simon Davis attended a roundtable with Exiting the EU Minister Suella Braverman MP to discuss the recently published White Paper on legislating the Withdrawal Agreement.
 
Wales
The Wales Office hosted the annual National Eisteddfod lecture last Thursday at the Senedd in Cardiff. Professor Elwen Evans QC, head of the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at the University of Swansea delivered the lecture on the future of legal practice in Wales. Professor Evans is a member of the Commission on Justice in Wales, which has been set up as an independent commission to review the operation of the justice system in Wales and set a long-term vision for its future. It is considering access to justice, jurisdictional arrangements, legal education and the Welsh legal services sector. It will report in 2019. Solicitor judge Hywel James introduced Professor Evans.
 
Our influencing work internationally:
 
This week I travelled to Singapore and Malaysia.  We met with the British Deputy High Commissioner to Singapore Alexandra McKenzie. 
 
We organised two roundtables on Women and the law.  We also visited the Singapore Supreme Court technology courts and Singapore Ministry of Law.
 
I had a meeting with the President of the Malaysian Bar Council George Varughese.
 
I chaired a panel discussion on Global Britain: Trade between the United Kingdom and Asia Post Brexit.  We met our members in both jurisdictions to review our work and international strategy in the region.
 
Supporting members at every stage of their career
 
Some of our upcoming events are:
Junior Lawyers Division forum: career development skills for junior lawyers
The forum is a full-day event involving a series of presentations on various aspects of legal practice and career management. It will be followed by a networking drinks reception.

Mental Health First Aid Course - Wales, 3-4 October 2018
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is a 12 hour interactive course over two days that qualifies you as an MHFA trainer. Through a mix of group activities, presentations and discussions, each session is built around a Mental Health First Aid action plan. Everyone who completes the course gets an MHFA manual to keep and refer to whenever they need it, and a badge and certificate to say they are an MHFA trainer. 

Careers: Growing your client base - harnessing the power of word of mouth
This workshop is designed to assist partners and fee earners on how to develop new business through referrals. Referrals are a great source of new business. Yet most firms or indeed individuals do not actively seek them, this is a missed opportunity as referrals are one of the most cost-effective ways to win new clients and new work. 
 
Supporting practice excellence
 
Risk and Compliance autumn conference 2018: the changing face of compliance
Join us in Leeds to gain knowledge, practical advice and guidance on how to safeguard your firm against the changing risk and compliance landscape. The conference will provide practical support for those responsible for managing risk and compliance, looking at the topics that matter to you.
 
Small Firms Division annual conference 2018
The Small Firms Division is dedicated to meeting the needs of all smaller legal businesses, including sole practitioners. The Division's flagship annual conferences will take place in London and Leeds, and will provide practitioners with a half-day of small firms-focused conference sessions, practical tips and networking opportunities.

National property law conference 2018
Changes in regulation, the increase of cyber-crime attacks and the uncertainty of the economy and property market are likely to affect the conveyancers and property practitioners in the next 12 months. This is the conference designed to give you the tools and support to help you overcome these difficulties.
 
As always, please feel free to share this update with your members unless otherwise specified.
 
Kind regards,
 
Christina
 
Christina Blacklaws
President
The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL
twitter: @lawsocpresident
www.lawsociety.org.uk

As the professional body for solicitors, every week the Law Society is working hard to influence the legal and regulatory environment on behalf of our profession and to promote solicitors at home and abroad. We support practice excellence, are an informed source of legal sector news and support members at every stage of their career.
 
Here are some highlights from our work last week.
 
Influencing on behalf of the profession and promoting the profession
 
The 6pm news on BBC Radio 4 was one of many broadcast bulletins to cover the Law Society’s High Court victory on Friday, August 3rd, when changes to the Litigators Graduated Fee Scheme (LGFS) were ruled to be unlawful and were overturned. Head of justice Richard Miller was interviewed after the high-profile ruling and soundbites were aired on BBC Radio 6 Music and twenty-four regional BBC radio channels. BBC One Breakfast Television also reported on the judgment on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, I was quoted in The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Morning Star, Yorkshire Post, Northern Echo, Daily Post and Oxford Mail, Scottish Legal News, New Law Journal and Counsel Magazine.
 
The Independent reported on the news that the Home Office is imposing non-disclosure agreements (NDA) on at least one victim of the Windrush scandal. It drew attention to a Law Society warning that anyone who tried to reach an agreement with the Home Office without independent legal advice “could be denied justice”.
 
Law Society Council member and member of the technology and law committee Steve Kuncewicz spoke to Eddie Mair on BBC Radio 4 PM about Apple’s decision, among others, to remove podcasts from American right-wing site Infowars.
 
Wills & equity committee member Kieran Bowe spoke to BBC Radio Surrey on August 8th to talk about the reasons to make a will as well as answer listener questions around making a will.
 
Former Law Society criminal law committee member Greg Stewart was quoted in approximately fifty local newspapers this week in a report focusing on juvenile crime and youth reoffending rates.
 
Don’t forget you can read all Law Society press releases by clicking on this link. For live updates follow us on Twitter.
 
Consultation responses and parliamentary activity, influencing on behalf of the profession:
Campaigns
Early advice campaign - over 100 people have now written direct to the Lord Chancellor in support of our early advice campaign, using our online template. This is a different action to the one focused on writing to local MPs, which is now closed and had 567 participants. You can write to the Lord Chancellor on our website here: https://lawsociety.e-activist.com/page/26570/action/1
 
LGFS
We won the judicial review we brought against the Government and the LGFS regulations have been quashed as a result.  Our case was won on both procedural unfairness and irrationality.  Read our press release here. 
 
AGFS
The Lord Chancellor has responded to our letter with an apology for not including the Law Society in discussions with the Bar Council and CBA on the AGFS. 
 
Court modernisation
We have submitted our comments to HMCTS on the second draft of the Evaluation Framework for the Flexible Operating House Pilot.  
 
QC appointments
We responded to the Queen’s Counsel Appointments consultation on proposed changes to the current QC appointments process.  The response deals with two consultations issued by the QCA entitled 'QC Appointment Scheme - Listing of cases and assessors' and 'QC Appointment Scheme - Integrity, Character and Conduct'.  Our response bears careful consideration of the existing process for the appointment of QCs and guidance for applicants which explains the approach taken by the selection panel at present.
The Society supports proposals that the QC appointments process should increase the diversity of those appointed as a QC and is supportive of mechanisms being put in place to try to ensure a level playing field in relation to both listing of cases and matters of integrity, character and conduct.
 
HMCTS Court Access Pilot
On 9 August, HMCTS announced a pilot scheme for speeding up access to courts for lawyers. The courts taking part in the pilot are Brighton Magistrates’ Court, Maidstone Combined Court; Southwark Crown Court, Tameside Magistrates’ Court and Wood Green Crown Court. Local court managers will be contacting firms in those areas about how to register for the pilot, which will open in September.
 
Our influencing work internationally:
I have been at the American Bar Association Annual Conference in Chicago this past week, attending a wide range of meetings with the leadership of the ABA and the ABA Section of International Law and foreign bar leaders. We also organised three roundtables on Women in Leadership in the Law and I spoke at three events on women in the law.
 
Lizzette Robleto de Howarth and Roberta Taveri are attending the annual conference of the Law Society of Kenya and organising a roundtable on International Women and the Law.
 
Supporting members at every stage of their career
We've now published “Your professional body – the value of your membership” aligned to the member offer. It  clearly shows how we influence for impact and promote the profession and showcases the services we offer to support practice excellence, keep members up to date be a career companion.
 
Some of our upcoming events are:
Junior Lawyers Division forum: career development skills for junior lawyers - 8 September, London
The forum is a full-day event involving a series of presentations on various aspects of legal practice and career management. It will be followed by a networking drinks reception.
 
International action team training
This training session will focus on the basics of international human rights law and the process of writing intervention letters.
The training will also address the basics of human rights institutions and procedures at the United Nations level and regional human rights systems. We will also consider the issues that should be taken into account in drafting intervention letters as well as other means of intervention.     
This training is only open to members of the Law Society’s International Action Team (IAT).
 
Future of Law lecture: Tackling bribery and corruption domestically and internationally
We invite subject matter experts to explore the most pressing legal questions facing the profession and aim to bring together leaders from across the legal profession, members, policy makers and key stakeholders to discuss how to maintain a successful legal services sector for the future.
 
Supporting practice excellence
We have just released the shortlist for the 2018 Excellence Awards. We received a fantastic response to the Excellence Awards this year; nominations increased by 49% from last year and visits to the Excellence Awards landing page on our website went up by 73%.
The winners will be announced on Wednesday 17 October at the striking new venue of Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, London where our guests will hear from host Mishal Husain, key note speaker Funke Abimbola MBE and myself.
 
Future of Law lecture: Current challenges to the rule of law in the UK with Dominic Grieve QC MP
Dominic Grieve QC MP, former Attorney General will be our key speaker for this lecture and will talk about the current challenges to the rule of law in the UK and what the legal profession can do to uphold and defend it. Cybersecurity, corruption and threats to business certainty have been reported as imminent threats and this lecture will explore how the legal profession can contribute to tackle them.
 
Property Section workshop: risk and negligence in property transactions - problems and pitfalls for practitioners
As the residential property market slows and returns on commercial property are threatened by the decline of the High Street, the risk that property owners will look to the professionals who advised them to recoup their losses returns. Hardwicke Chambers up and coming book: Risk and Negligence in Property Transactions, is therefore timely. Commissioned and published by the Law Society, this title identifies the problems, pitfalls and risks faced when acting for the buyer, seller or lender, possibly giving rise to a liability in negligence. To learn more about this, join the John de Waal QC and other contributors of the book for an interactive and practical breakfast workshop in which they will share and discuss some of their insights.

Civil Litigation Section autumn conference: It’s a risky business
This year’s Civil Litigation Section autumn conference will focus on risks that litigators face with the aim of equipping event attendees with the knowledge to manage such risks.
 
As always, please feel free to share this update with your members unless otherwise specified.
 
Kind regards,
 
Christina
 
Christina Blacklaws
President
The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL
twitter: @lawsocpresident
www.lawsociety.org.uk
​

Our next committee meetings will take place at Hunt & Coombs Solicitors, Peterborough on 15 August 2018 and 10 October 2018. ​