It seems from the TV and newspapers that we are not allowed to speak about anything other than the change of epoch from Elizabeth ll to Charles lll, and so I will comply.
Of course, for us it is truly an epochal change. To go with the flow of personal reminiscences, I heard the news just as my Eurostar train was leaving the UK and about to enter the Channel tunnel. Those in my immediate surroundings – Dutch business people – continued to study and discuss flow charts on their screens, untouched by the news, while I scrolled urgently for the latest updates.
I was not even born and brought up in Britain, but in the colonies. My parents were not even British, but refugees. And yet, as with British-born people, the Queen was a constant in our lives (despite my age, she was Queen even before I was born). We stood up in the cinemas to ‘God Save the Queen’; the Queen’s head was on the coins and stamps – and all that. (I will not go into the politics of Empire, which, although clearly connected to the Queen, raises very different questions and emotions.)
It is better to look forward, but, before doing so, I will look briefly back. Our profession has changed out of all recognition over the last 70 years. Here are three major changes since the Queen came to the throne, which would have been unimaginable back then:
- the number of practising solicitors was then around 17,000 (it is now over 150,000, partly because of our change from a manufacturing to a services economy);
- the proportion of women was very small, and of ethnic minorities practically non-existent (it now stands at 52% for women and 17% for ethnic minorities, as a result of changes in the status of women and the consequences of immigration);
- the solicitors’ profession had not yet seen its incredible international expansion, which began in the next decades, translating into a trade surplus in legal services of £5.6 bn in 2020/2021, partly caused by removal of limits on the size of firms in the 1960s.
And yet it is better to look forward. There are many things that one could wish for in the new Carolean age, which will probably last less than half as long as the Elizabethan age just passed. Of course, Charles lll will have nothing to do with its implementation. That depends mostly, at the beginning at any rate, on the second constitutional upheaval of the week – two in one week is excessive and historic – with a new prime minister, new lord chancellor and new Cabinet just a couple of days before the accession of the new king.
Any manifesto should begin with proper funding for legal aid. I have not included it, not because it is unimportant, but because it is already recognised and acted upon by our professional bodies. So here goes (these proposals are entirely personal, and I will restrict myself to three).
First, we need a new regulatory settlement for legal services.
Anything that is so complicated that it is almost impossible to explain to people outside the UK is not fit for purpose. We have three national jurisdictions, six legal professions (two per jurisdiction), and in England and Wales two regulators for each of the two professions (an overarching one and a more detailed one) plus a representative body, each with its own set of initials, powers and rules. Then there are those who provide legal services under a different structure, and – challenging the whole edifice – those who practise without any regulatory oversight at all.
It may be based on our history, but it is inefficient, defies common and business sense, and does not serve our image as a global legal centre.
The danger, of course, particularly under this government, is that a new settlement will be used to deregulate legal services, with which I would not agree. But this government, unlike the last monarch, will not last for 70 years, and may last barely two years. The work towards a new regulatory structure should begin now, to be implemented when the time is right.
Second, there should be an overhaul of legal education, to include a massive dollop of IT (programming, understanding how frequently-used platforms work and where data is sent, use of smart machines, process management and legal project management).
Third, we need a debate around the meaning and purpose of ethics. For instance, is it enough that we merely comply with our client’s wishes and stay within the law, or do we owe a wider duty to the rule of law and justice, separate from client wishes and related to whether something is fair and right?
In that way, we might emerge from the Carolean age as successfully as we have from the last Elizabethan one.
Jonathan Goldsmith is Law Society Council member for EU & international, chair of the Law Society’s Policy & Regulatory Affairs Committee and a member of its board. All views expressed are personal and are not made in his capacity as a Law Society Council member, nor on behalf of the Law Society
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