Solicitor and barristers
will come closer together, says Law Society
President
Law Society President John
Wotton will today say that barristers and solicitors will
increasingly work together in the same practices, in his speech at
Said Business School, Oxford.
The Law Society President will
tell an audience of senior members of the legal sector, academics,
students and business leaders that while he does not expect the two
professions to fuse, he does anticipate that they will become less
distinct, over time. Wotton expects the education and training of
barristers and solicitors to converge and more advocates to start
their careers in law firms, rather than barristers'
chambers.
In his speech Fission or Fusion;
Independence or Constraint? John Wotton said:
“There must be competitive
advantages and efficiencies to be gained from having the full range
of dispute resolution services under the same roof.
“A number of corporate law
firms have recruited experienced barristers. This seems entirely
rational, for it is unlikely that the international commercial
success of UK corporate firms has been achieved because, rather
than in spite of, their lacking the trial advocacy capability of
their US competitors.
“The concern on the part
of the Bar to adapt their traditional structure to compete more
effectively for legal aid contracts and other work, appears to be a
recognition of this imperative.”
The speech comes against the
backdrop of the new era in legal services, where the arrival of
alternative business structures is expected to create more
competition and innovation of legal services. Wotton points to ABS
as a potential driving force for change in the established legal
sector.
He said: “The new modes of
practice will increasingly challenge the norms under which lawyers
practise under the separate titles of barrister and
solicitor.
“I believe this
development will lead inevitably to the need to revisit the
question whether these two professions should continue to be
separately trained, represented and regulated, as they have been
for the past 180 years. I envisage the time coming when the
barrister/solicitor distinction will be more a decorative than a
functional aspect of our legal constitution.”
Wotton will analyse the
regulatory structure under the Legal Services Act and conclude that
it is capable of maintaining the independence and standards of the
legal profession and of operating successfully in the changing
legal market environment. He will says this depends, however, on
the Legal Services Board recognising the limits of its statutory
remit and the approved regulators acting independently of the
LSB.
Wotton will end the speech with
the prediction that it would be surprising if ABS would remain an
innovation confined to England & Wales.
Ends
Contact: Steve Rudaini, The Law
Society
+44 (0)20 7316
5624