Kate Burt, solicitor and founder of legal risk and compliance consultancy HiveRisk, discusses her experience of attending the Law Society AGM in her capacity as a member of the SME & Boutique Law Firm Alliance and member of the Law Society.
The Law Society AGM offered a timely test of how the profession responds when regulatory concern, institutional strategy and practitioner frustration converge. The proposed COLP and COFA changes provided the immediate focus, but the discussion quickly widened to confidence in regulatory decision-making and the profession’s ability to influence it.
I attended as a solicitor, a Law Society member, on behalf of my law firm clients and as co-founder of the SME & Boutique Law Firm Alliance. That perspective provided a close view of both the substance of the Rule 8.4 debate and the differing judgments in the room about how best to secure change.
Rule 8.4 would restrict who may act as COLP and COFA where one person exercises unilateral management authority. The proposals are paused, not withdrawn. Their potential impact was brought into sharp focus when Julie West, of Julie West Solicitors, told the meeting that the changes could cause her firm to close.
Other practitioners also spoke with conviction about the potential impact of the proposals.
From Rule 8.4 to wider accountability
At the AGM, Alliance co-founder Jade Gani explained why, after consulting supporters, the Alliance had maintained its request for a confidence vote. Concerns were not confined to the drafting or practical impact of Rule 8.4.
They extended to the adequacy of the evidence and consultation underpinning regulatory proposals, the transparency of decision-making and whether the existing system provided sufficient accountability when regulatory oversight failed.
The cases of Axiom Ince, SSB Law and PM Law had also raised broader questions about public protection, the speed and effectiveness of regulatory intervention and who is answerable when warning signs are missed. Against that background, the Alliance viewed a confidence vote not as a substitute for engagement, but as a formal means of testing the profession’s confidence and ensuring that assurances of improvement were followed by measurable outcomes. It had explored with the Law Society a range of constitutional routes, including Council action, alternative resolutions, a Special General Meeting and a properly notified motion at a future AGM, while considering the implications of both a successful and an unsuccessful vote.
A formal confidence motion did not proceed at the AGM. The chair’s position was that the Law Society’s bye-laws did not permit new business of that kind to be introduced without sufficient notice, leaving the question of a future vote unresolved.
Passion and strategy are not opposites
The AGM exposed a genuine difference of opinion about how best to secure change.
That difference should not be misrepresented as a choice between a strategic approach and a passionate one, as some commentary around the debate appeared to suggest. Both the Alliance and other bodies, including the Law Society, continue to engage directly with the SRA and the LSB. The confidence vote was one additional tool within that wider strategy: a means of securing democratic scrutiny and measuring the strength of feeling among the profession.
That was the point I addressed from the floor. Constructive engagement, pressure from the profession and democratic scrutiny are not mutually exclusive; each can form part of a credible strategy for reform. The different strategies are not mutually exclusive; each has a rational basis and can work alongside the others to achieve the best overall result.
The decisions being made without the profession
Beyond the confidence-vote debate, the AGM was a reminder that consequential decisions are routinely made while much of the profession is absent. Members present were able to vote on Law Society officer remuneration and other matters affecting how their representative body operates and speaks on their behalf. Many eligible members may not have known that these questions were before the meeting. Had they known, some would almost certainly have held strong views and wanted their votes counted.
If members are unaware of when and where decisions are being taken, their formal right to vote offers little practical influence. A small number of attendees then determine the outcome—not because the wider profession agrees, but because they are not in the room. Absence is not consent, yet it can have the same effect. Every missed vote is an opportunity surrendered to shape decisions that may later affect firms, clients and the direction of the profession.
A profession cannot influence decisions it does not join
The practical message is straightforward. Solicitors should read the proposals, respond to consultations, ask representative bodies what positions they are taking, attend meetings where possible and use their vote when an opportunity arises. Engagement does not require agreement with one organisation or one strategy. It requires recognising that regulatory outcomes are shaped by those who take part.
The COLP and COFA debate remains live. So does the larger question of regulatory accountability. If the profession wants proportionate rules and representative decisions, it cannot allow its future to be written largely in its absence.
