President's column: April 2023

One of the most rewarding aspects of the President’s role is welcoming new solicitors to our profession at our admissions ceremonies. It was a real honour and pleasure at the end of last month to attend the biggest admission ceremony the Society has held in its 74-year history, sharing a special day with 80 new solicitors. It’s likely we’ll have even larger ceremonies in the near future, as the record number of trainees taken on in the past two years begin to feed through to the ranks of newly qualified solicitors.

New members are quite literally the future of our profession, and marking their achievement is important, as is providing the right support in the earliest stages in their careers. Ensuring the health of the profession also means preparing for the changes coming, whether that’s in regulation, technology, business practices or wider society, to help ensure the most recent cohort of new solicitors are well placed to deal with challenges and capitalise on opportunities.

Feedback from your localities

Unfortunately, not all of us are feeling quite so positive about the present, let alone the future, which is why the constituency visits I’ve been making across the country are so important. Feedback from members at these events has confirmed issues for some firms and in-house teams, regardless of where they are located or their size. The struggle for employers to recruit newly qualified solicitors, or to retain their trainees on qualification, is something that’s playing out across the country, and it is not just finding and keeping suitable candidates for junior positions that’s proving difficult: the filling of senior solicitor posts is also posing challenges.

From my discussions I know that members in more rural areas such as the Highlands are finding it extremely difficult to recruit, and some firms and in-house legal teams are considering that a new approach is needed, such as outsourcing certain areas of work. However, it is not exclusive to those in rural areas, with those working in towns and cities also raising these difficulties.

The changing shape of the profession and provision of legal services across Scotland is something we are monitoring closely. This is also an issue for other jurisdictions, professions and sectors, so we are not alone in this. While solicitors have proven themselves to be resilient over decades of change, we need to ensure the profession remains in good health to serve businesses and communities for the years to come.
We’ll continue to engage with our members on this.

Profile of the Profession

Our five-yearly census of members – Profile of the Profession, or POP – is now underway and you should have received an email from the independent researchers Taylor McKenzie. This is a key piece of research for us and provides us with a crucial insight into our members’ experiences and how the profession is changing and progressing. All voices and views are important, as the research directly impacts the work of the Society.

The results of our previous POP survey in 2018, which generated over 2,700 responses, led to a host of major initiatives, such as launching Lawscot Wellbeing; embedding diversity training in the practice management course; the creation of a gender equality action plan; establishing the Racial Inclusion Group; and hosting events promoting LGBTQ+ inclusion.

It’s important for us to hear about your views and experiences, so if you have not yet completed the survey, please do take the time to do so before it closes on 10 May. The more of our members who take part, the better it will reflect the solicitor population and the better we will be able to support you, having robust evidence for our future policy work and negotiations with bodies such as the Scottish Government.