Vote 'No; No' in the Referendum on Alternative Business Structures
All of us hold dear the principles essential to the administration of justice in Scotland: independence, confidentiality, avoiding conflicts of interest. All of us regard justice not as a product at the sole mercy of profit but as a crucial service that must be available for all our communities in Scotland. All of us now have a chance to re-affirm these ideals.
Vote NO; NO to the Law Society Referendum. To not do so would be to open up control of our legal services to purely commercial organisations. No amount of regulations or regulators stopped the banks undermining our whole banking system. ABS will allow them to now ruin our legal services.
Non-profitable areas will be abandoned - supermarkets and other so called entities are geared solely by profit. No amount of regulation will stop legal services being used as a portal for money laundering and other similar activities - our legal services will be open to criminal control.
There should be no role for the Law Society of Scotland in regulating such people. No Guarantee Fund or Master Policy could cope with this.
A NO; NO vote will stop all of this in its tracks. We need to refocus our legal services on Scotland’s communities and citizens. They deserve better. We need to send a message to the Scottish Government to think again. We must reform our Law Society as it has shown itself incapable of representing all of those trying to render a legal service in Scotland now and in the future.
We must seek to re-affirm, through any such reform, the principles crucial to the administration of justice. We must also ensure that the legal service is preserved and improved across the whole range of needs of the Scottish people and their communities.
Join us to begin to make this happen and ensure you vote NO; NO by noon, 7 April 2010.FRANK MAGUIRE, Senior Partner and Solicitor Advocate, Thompsons Solicitors JOHN McGOVERN, Solicitor Advocate, President of the Glasgow Bar Association WALTER SEMPLE, Solicitor, Member of the Council of the Law Society of Scotland MIKE DAILLY, Principal Solicitor, Govan Law CentrePATRICK McGUIRE, Solicitor Advocate and Partner, Thompsons Solicitors
Glasgow Bar Association response to the Law Society of Scotland's 'Proposals for Change' consultation document: Section 1 of the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 states the "objects" of the Law Society of Scotland (the "LSS"). It is the view of the Glasgow Bar Association (the "GBA") that there is an irreconcilable conflict contained within s.1 of the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 (the "Act"). That section legislates that it shall be "the object" of the Law Society of Scotland, inter alia, to "promote" the "interests of the solicitors' profession in Scotland" as well as "promoting the interests of the public in relation to that profession". It is impossible for the promotion of both interests to be mutually consistent, beneficial or indeed legitimate.
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