Working towards a better, fairer law

The Law Society is committed to working towards a better, fairer legal system. Throughout the past year we have taken on a number of projects to promote better law in England and Wales, including responses to government consultations and interventions in important cases.

We've worked with the profession to ensure that solicitors' views are taken into account in legislative reforms, and provided practice notes and guidance to support our members through changes to the law.

We aim for thought leadership and to encourage reasoned and evidenced public debate that promotes our members' expertise, experience and important role in civil society.

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Representing the views of the profession

We worked with the legal profession to gather solicitors'  views on important law reform issues through roadshows, conferences and policy events held throughout the year.

Ensuring that solicitors'  viewpoints were represented in the law reform process, we submitted responses to over fifty government consultations, such as the civil litigation Green Paper and the Jackson report on costs.  

We also held events such as the inaugural 'criminal law conference for practitioners', and a series of criminal justice information roadshows to get the views of the profession in the development of criminal justice reforms.

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Supporting solicitors through changes to law

Solicitors need timely, accurate information to stay up to date as the law evolves. The Law Society supports its members by producing guidance via practice notes, conferences and seminars. On 2010/11 we produced over 20 practice notes on a huge variety of topics covering important changes to the law.

The Law Society also contributes to guidance documents produced by other bodies that solicitors and other professionals will need to refer to - for example, assisting the Equality and Human Rights Commission with its guidance on housing and human rights.

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The Law Society Manifesto

The Law Society's Manifesto, published in the lead up to last year's election, sets out the four principles that the Law Society believes government should uphold in their approach to law-making.

1. That government will uphold the rule of law by ensuring meaningful access to justice for all.
2. That government will properly defend the rights of the people.
3. That government will work for good governance and better law making .
4. That government will support and encourage strong and independent legal services.

Download the Manifesto (PDF)
Read more about the Law Society Manifesto

These principles underpin our lobbying and law reform work. Over the past year, we've worked to achieve better and fairer law in many different areas, including:

civil justice		employment
crime		mental health
wills and equity		tax
immigration		company and commercial law

Where important points of principle were at stake, the Law Society intervened in cases or took claims to assist the profession.

Some of the cases where we actively intervened this year were:

• the successful  judicial review on costs from central funds. Proposals to cap the recovery of costs from central funds by acquitted criminal defendants to legal aid rates were successfully quashed.
• the Prudential litigation defending the principles of legal professional privilege in the Court of Appeal.

The Law Society also takes an active lobbying role as government proposals move through the legislative process. During 2010/11 we:

• worked with the Ministry of Justice on proposals for a Repeals Bill.
• conducted a high-profile media campaign calling on regulation of will writers, laying the groundwork for sustained parliamentary lobbying later in the year.
• participated in the civil litigation costs reform.

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