Professional briefing - The Journal Online

The answer proposed by Raymond
McLennan is that we should all be
forced to carry out pro bono work.
But what is the question?
Raymond suggests that our
competition in the future will not
be Tesco but will be the likes of
charitable bodies such as the
Salvation Army and others.
He says that to compete with this,
we should act now. Raymond has,
also, told me of his view that, to
retain clients, the profession needs
to innovate and market itself.
I’m not writing here, merely, to
counter Raymond’s argument about
pro bono work. Raymond is right
about some things. We do need to
market ourselves. We do need to
innovate. I shall return to this later.
The definition of “pro bono” is
“done for the public good without
compensation”, and words that I
would associate with this are
“charitable”, “generous”, “kindly”,
“open-palmed” – all words relating
to the giving of something out of
an internal desire to do good.
I think a lot of us do pro bono
work. I certainly do. I have done
myriads of free 15-minute
diagnostic interviews.
Although my wife
would doubt it, I
must have some of this
“cognitive surplus”. In
addition, I publicise the
good work that my staff and
I do for charity. As a result, the
message has come over that I am,
after all, human, that I care, that I am
approachable and I am not a toff.
The point, however, is that I do it
because I want to do it. If I am forced
www.lawscotjobs.co.uk
Bruce
de Wert
Bruce de Wert is a
solicitor with more
than 25 years’
experience. Apart from
his traditional practice
at Georgesons,
Wick and Thurso, he
is also the owner of
www.scotwills.co.uk
and his most recent
innovation,
www.myscottish
divorce.co.uk
to do it, it is no longer “pro bono”
and the pleasure will come out of it.
As I have said to Raymond, his
proposal is both repugnant and
immoral. To be forced to do
something for nothing is slavery:
“the subjection of a person to another
person, especially in being forced into
work”. To force those in our employ
to do pro bono work would be to be
complicit in slavery. Can we presume
that, being pro bono, no payment
would be expected by our employees?
If that were not bad enough,
I glean from our correspondence
that the anticipation is that, with
this pro bono work, we will change
the public perception of solicitors.
It won’t. In fact, it would have a
negative impact on the public regard
for the profession. He is inviting the
Government to force us to do
something – thereby implying
that we don’t do it already.
Raymond has his finger on the
button here, though. There is a real
problem with the public perception
of solicitors. It can be stated as “all
solicitors are rogues... except mine”.
Why is this? It is a marketing issue.
It’s because we don’t get our act
together and drip feed the public with
all the good news stories that exist.
I do it, but Raymond has a point
– it needs to be done collectively.
In my view, the profession,
through the Law Society, should
employ someone permanently
dedicated to this task of changing
perceptions as to who we are and
what we do. It will take some time,
but I have no doubt whatsoever
that we would be successful.
The other point raised by
Raymond is that of innovation.
We certainly need to innovate.
Doing things the way we have
always done it, just because we’ve
always done it that way, will not cut
the mustard in the future.
Raymond does not think Tesco
would be our competitors. I think that
they (and others like them) will. They
do not think the way we do. They
probably will not produce a better
product, but they will innovate and
they will, very definitely, market their
products much better than we do.
On his blog, Raymond quotes Sam
Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart, owners
of Asda: “There is only one boss: the
customer. And he can fire everybody
in the company from the chairman
on down simply by spending his
money somewhere else.”
I couldn’t agree more.
We certainly need to innovate.
Doing things the way we have
always done it, just because we’ve
always done it that way, will not
cut the mustard in the future
July 2010 theJournal / 11