There seems an extraordinary official silence as to the potential relationship of the scandal of News International with the forthcoming implementation of alternative business structures. News International, if it passed the fitness-to-own test, and indeed until the scandal it surely would have, could own a considerable number of legal firms.
As honorary secretary of the Sole Practitioners Group, I gave a statement to the Law Society’s AGM on the subject. This statement can be accessed on the Sole Practitioners Group website.
The potential effect of any pressure by a large organisation such as News International will no doubt be examined at the judicial inquiry hearings. The least that should be done is to delay the implementation of ABSs until the judicial inquiry determines the extent of the influence of a large organisation over its own employees and over third-party organisations such as the police, and, if it be the case, lawyers. Only then can it be safely decided whether the new proposed system will be an unnecessary risk to the public.
To those who will immediately respond that the panacea of regulation will provide a safeguard, the answer is that News International managed to carry out the practices for which it has now apologised and keep them quiet for a good number of years, during which no one would have challenged that they were fit and proper to own solicitors’ firms.
Clive Sutton, honorary secretary, Sole Practitioners Group, Lymington, Hampshire
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