Law Society of Scotland launches annual plan

The plan highlights our key projects to be delivered over the next year. These include:

Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland, said: “The next 12 months will mark one of the most significant periods of change in the Law Society’s proud 66-year history. We are excited to begin the journey towards being a truly world-class professional body and the annual plan sets out how we will work towards achieving our ambitions.

“It’s important for us to define our priorities as an organisation and it has been great to get so much positive feedback from our members and others across the legal and business communities on the vision we have set out in the Leading Legal Excellence Strategy 2015-2020.

“We want to ensure that our members and others have a clear understanding of what we want to achieve and why. The annual plan is an important part of that conversation which explains how we will assure the public, serve our members, excel as an organisation, influence society around us and grow our membership and income.”

The Society’s 2015-2020 strategy focuses on delivering the highest possible standards within the legal profession. It also aims to offer membership beyond its current 11,000 solicitors to include other legal sector professionals, reflecting the wider changes being seen across the legal market.

Ms Jack added: “We realise that the ability to fully deliver our new strategy is limited by the current statutory framework. We plan to work with the Scottish government, Scottish parliamentarians and others to argue the case for new enabling legislation that would mean we can meet our strategic objectives and create an environment which will allow the legal market to thrive while also providing strong consumer protections.

“In the first year of the strategy we will look to complete important work already underway and launch new projects that enhance the confidence and trust of the public.

“Through reforming our Client Protection Fund and continuing our work towards a system of entity-based regulation we aim to improve our protections to consumers.

“It is essential that we improve our own understanding of the increasingly diverse needs of our members, whatever their background and place of business so we can develop new services which bring added value to our members, including broader use of our new digital Smartcards.

“A key aspect of delivering the strategy of growth will be agreeing the new categories of affiliate membership and the required qualifications so we can roll this out in subsequent years. We also aim to raise our existing membership to 11,800 by developing a new strategy for the retention of our existing members and ensuring we provide a value proposition for those not required to hold a full solicitor practising certificate.

“We also intend to increase our commercial income to £1.6 million by launching innovative new products and services and by expanding our commercial partnerships which benefit our members and their clients.

“This year’s targets are just the start as we head towards 2020 and our overarching ambition of being a world-class professional body which is leading legal excellence. I look forward to reporting on what we achieve in the next 12 months.”

For more detailed information and to read the annual plan, visit the Law Society’s website.