Waiting for Godot...or ABS?

October will pass without Alternative Business Structures and it looks likely it will be the end of the year before we see them, unless you are a licensed conveyancer that is. In part this is due to the way parliamentary business is done and also to the manner in which appeals against Solicitors Regulation Authority decisions will be conducted. There is also the vexed question of what criminal convictions have to be disclosed by potential investors in ABS.

I'm sure we'll get there in the end even if parts of the legal profession wish this would all go away.

I was struck by Dan Bindman's column on Legal Futures, "Are you an ABS optimist or pessimist?" It's worth reading for the views represented on the potential effects of ABS. Dan ultimately says,

One thing is certain: the new entrants will have little regard for broader notions of access to justice, or the social value of having an independent legal profession to police the three-way interface between the state, the market and the individual.

We don't know this of course. And Dave Edmonds, chair of the Legal Services Board, comments,

Dan Bindman’s article poses the right questions. But I quarrel strongly with his assertion that new entrants will “have little regard for broader notions of access to justice”. Why will they not? Many of the most ambitious and innovative lawyers operating in the present marketplace have a very high commitment to this fundamental cause. My belief is that extending the ability of citizens to secure affordable legal advice from new forms of law firms (which will be in the main run by lawyers and properly regulated by regulators for whom access to justice is an underlying principle) will enhance access to justice, not diminish it.

Read the other comments also--there's good stuff there.

When it comes to dynamic change the legal profession has always been in the vanguard of resistance. It's almost a reflex action. Legal aid was resisted when introduced in the 1940s. Then lawyers learned how it would benefit them. They love it now! But that's going.

Lawyers were opposed to neighbourhood law centres because they thought they would take away business. Instead they promoted it. Their funding is being cut now.

The legal profession has a good eye for resisting winners and on that basis I think they might be on to something with their opposition to ABS. Just don't leave too late...

Waiting for Godot...or ABS?

Is Solicitors from Hell a Conspiracy Against the Legal Profession?

(thanks to Byfield)

As I came out of the BBC yesterday with Des Hudson*, the chief executive of the Law Society, he said Rick Kordowski was a criminal. I reminded Des that the police didn't think so. He wasn't happy.

We'd both been invited to discuss Solicitors from Hell on Radio 4's You and Yours consumer affairs programme. For those of you who might not know Solicitors from Hell allows disaffected clients to write their stories about their dissatisfaction with their lawyers. At times the voices are plaintive, frustrated, and upset. A number of lawyers have sued Kordowski for defamation, except he's got no money. And recently a judge suggested the Law Society and the Bar Council take action against Kordowski and his website.

The BBC has put the story and the difference between Des and myself on their news website. You can listen to our discussion here: we are Chapter Three.

My view is quite simple. Whatever one thinks of Kordowski or his website, it serves a need. It demonstrates clearly that people need an outlet to express their feelings and concerns about how they are treated. Instead of attacking Solictors from Hell the Law Society should be doing something about those complaints. It should be preventing the need for a website like Solicitors from Hell. If there's no felt need, then no SfH.

Lawyers are improving their game--don't get me wrong--but far too slowly. In the first six months of setting up the new Legal Ombudsman received nearly 40,000 calls which turned into close to 4,000 complaints. And there is a backlog as well. But that's far too many complaints for a profession to have landing on its doorstep. It's still not an easy process to complain about bad legal services. It could involve the Ombudsman or it might the task of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Certainly the Law Society website doesn't make clear about how to go about complaining except to give a link to the Legal Ombudsman. Take a look at its website home page and see how easy it is to locate the complaints section. It's not.

This is one of the reasons why government decided the professional bargain was no longer working and passed the Legal Services Act in 2007 and established an entirely new regime of regulators for the legal profession and legal services market. Professions have to be accountable to the public.

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*Here's Des in a better mood and you can read previous posts on Solicitors from Hell from March, April, and June.

Is Solicitors from Hell a Conspiracy Against the Legal Profession?

82nd Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (15 July, 6-8pm, room 516, University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, London)

Dear all,

Have you ever wondered why the world monetary system walks the path it does, a segment of which we are living in? Do you ever wonder whether there is indeed an invisible hand that "puppets" the world's monetary system and certainly not behaving in the pattern of the famous Adam Smith's invisible hand? Theories of the "invisible hand" have famously circled the world for hundreds of years either as part of scientific argumentation (e.g. the human drivers) or conspiracy speculations (e.g. clans of new world order). However not so known to the ordinary man, but at the same time so intriguingly powerful, comes the speculative statement that such an invisible hand exists and it is called the Exchange Stabilisation Funds (ESF). With its unaccountable authority to no one else, except from the President and the Secretary of Treasury, its hand on the gold reserves of the United States, its institutional influence on the world monetary policy (IMF, World Bank) and its legal authority to "....provide financing to foreign governments", among others, it is difficult to be sceptical about the supremacy of such a hand. 

Congress created the ESF with profits from the nationalization of gold—and adjustment of the gold standard for the dollar—in the early 1930s. With the passage of the Gold Reserve Act, the government stash increased in value by $2.8 billion; most of that money was then diverted into a new fund to help the Treasury manage the exchange value of the U.S. dollar in times of crisis by buying and selling foreign currencies without congressional approval.

ESF funds are devoted not solely for foreign exchange. The secretary can, with the approval of the president, use the money to "deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities." (i.e. ANYTHING on securities market) 

Some sources to further intrigue our curiosity:

http://www.slate.com/id/2200816/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_Stabilization_Fund

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj_lSydKB8M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssrcD5GdPQ 

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/ESF/Pages/esf-index.aspx

Afterwards can head for drinks at the beautiful bar at the Langham's hotel. See you tonight.

82nd Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (15 July, 6-8pm, room 516, University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, London)