Law Society’s Gazette, October 1971 Letters to the editor

Weekly Gazette

I was interested to learn that the Gazette is to become a weekly newspaper from next January, and while I would agree that this may help to make the Gazette more topical, I wonder whether full attention has been given to the following points.

Firstly, many solicitors, like myself, must use the Gazette primarily as a source of quick reference to recent changes in the law, practice directions and so on.

I normally keep a pile of the last few copies by my desk, and even if one is slightly uncertain as to the precise issue in which a particular item appeared one can generally discover this by glancing through a relatively small number of volumes. With a weekly newspaper one will be faced with wading through up to fifty copies until such time as the annual index is received.

Secondly, we are told that the conversion to a weekly newspaper will lead to a saving of £6,000 in 1972. Postage and distribution costs in connection with a weekly newspaper are presumably four times as great as with a monthly glossy and, with a further substantial rise in postal costs quite likely in 1972, one wonders whether this figure is not somewhat optimistic.

Therefore, while I am quite prepared to congratulate the Council upon its progressive thinking, as we are urged when it appears to deserve it, one wonders whether in this instance the new weekly newspaper may not be rather less progressive that the present monthly glossy.

A Peace, Birmingham

Public and professional relations

Referring to Mr Sanctuary’s article in the Gazette (July) on the subject of the popularity of solicitors, or the lack of it, the British Legal Association takes the view that solicitors will remain unliked (but never unwanted) for just as long as the law and procedure they have to administer remains as outdated and expensive as it is today.

The law’s stupidities, of which there are many, and its delays always rub off on solicitors who have for too long taken the blame for something they are not responsible for and have little or no power to alter.

Perhaps if our profession made its views more apparent, it would be to its benefit.

The last people to be considered in courts are usually solicitors. This alone is unsatisfactory to clients.

DJ Dean, acting PRO, British Legal Association