Sector "rising to challenge": Millar

The in-house sector, just like its counterparts in private practice, is rising to the challenges of “the worst economic climate in living memory”, Jamie Millar, the Law Society of Scotland’s Vice President, told the meeting. That applied equally to those working for banks that had gone from being the powerhouses of the UK economy to relying on state assistance, local authorities experiencing major spending cuts, and to the wider corporate sector.

“Many in-house teams”, he added, “have helped private practice by taking secondments from firms who have seen M&A work and property work reduce drastically.”

While every job lost in the profession “is felt with regret throughout our collegiate profession”, there had not been the widespread job losses and insolvencies which some merchants of gloom had predicted.

Looking to the future, the coming legislation to permit alternative business structures would be a seismic change of even greater effect than those that took place in the 1980s – the abolition of scale fees “and other ills which were predicted to bring about the end of the legal profession as we knew it”. Instead, what had been a “comfortable, introverted profession” was transformed into “the dynamic profession which runs large, successful and profitable businesses with increasing specialism and expertise”.

Equally, with the present bill, “we should ask not what harm it can do for the profession, but what opportunities it can offer”. The Society intended to be a regulator and as such would work to ensure that solicitors were not competitively disadvantaged but could compete on a level playing field with other providers.

Millar’s address was followed by the Group’s AGM, in which Chairman Janet Hood reported on her work as Group Convener for the Representation Committees under the Society’s new structure, particularly addressing the plight of the graduates, trainees and young lawyers currently facing an uncertain future. Through networking events with chambers of commerce and other business leaders they hoped to demonstrate the value of always having a lawyer on the team. In-house lawyers could help by enabling links for all openings in their organisations to be made available to the Society.

She also commented on the continuing unawareness among law students of the existence of the in-house sector and the ease with which solicitors can move between it and private practice. “One of our main goals for future law fairs is to increase awareness of the ILG and its links with the Society… We are also looking into meeting with the university law schools and working at increasing our in-house profile among students as future career options.”