ABS –NOT GUILTY, MAGNUS, NOT GUILTY

ABS –NOT GUILTY, MAGNUS, NOT GUILTY

We welcome the reporting of the ABS situation in the Times and the publicity given to the dilemma in which the profession finds itself and, in particular, the focus on how the Law Society came to reverse its policy on ABS in the absence of views from the vast majority of the profession. However, members may have read also the charges against your Society by Magnus Linklater published in The Times, 28th January, 2010, that your Society has been slow in realising what is about to happen to the profession and that we have failed to turn out our members to vote against the reforms. In fact, your Society published a warning against ABS in the Gazette within days after the Law Society announced the reversal of its long standing policy against ABS. Each edition of our Gazette since that change of policy has contained lengthy investigations in to various aspects of ABS and warnings against possible adverse consequences.

SLAS also conducted an opinion poll during 2009 which attracted about five times as many responses as did the consultation conducted by the Law Society prior to its own change of policy. This disclosed a 70% total rejection of ABS in principal and an 85% rejection of external ownership of law practices in particular. Virtually the whole of the narrative response which we have received has been anti-ABS, in many cases, vehemently so. We have now presented our membership with the option of calling a Special General Meeting of the Law Society in order to update the Law Society policy on Alternative Business Structures.

We have also submitted a letter for publication in The Times, in response to Magnus Linklater.