Professional briefing - The Journal Online

The President’s favourite Christmas film has
a message for the age of deregulation
Production values dictate that a
publication such as the Journal has a
two week advance deadline.
From time to time, however, such a
gap between composition and
publication has an unfortunate
feature. When considering the subject
matter of this month’s epistle, and
casting around for inspiration,
the only suggestion offered
was that I “write
something festive”. By
the time you read this
that will be entirely
appropriate but, as I prepare it,
on the eve of the Feast of St Andrew,
Christmas still seems some distance
away. Few, if any, halls are for the
moment holly bough-bedecked; even
where the great Venn diagram with
one subset of chestnuts and a second
of open fires already intersects, little
roasting yet takes place; and the
herald angels, far from being in full
voice, haven’t even got round to
booking the room for their choir
practice.
In an attempt to put me in the
mood, Wee Mo has brushed 11
months’ dust off my CD of Phil
Spector’s Christmas Album and
loaded it on my iPod, but even that
only prompted me to do a quick
internet check on whether Spector
ever appealed his murder conviction
(he didn’t), rather than start
imagining that Santa Claus’s arrival in
town appears truly imminent.
So, what to write? There are
traditionally (sic) two possible
themes for a piece of this nature. The
first involves reflecting on the year
past and anticipating the year ahead,
but I think I’ll leave that for January.
That is surely the Scottish way.
The second involves some short
Christmas parable. That’s the one
I’m going for.
My favourite Christmas film is Frank
Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. It is, I
should observe, a wholly appropriate
choice for an Officer of the Law Society
of Scotland. Not only does its plot
revolve around a (failed) financial
compliance inspection but it features
inter alia a dance floor in need of a
health and safety audit, a house whose
purchase would surely never have been
undertaken had it required a home
report, and a credit crunch which
make our own problems this year
appear to be a mere bagatelle. It is,
obviously, a sentimental film but in
many ways it is not a wholly naive one.
George Bailey, the central character,
does become an invaluable, loved and
respected figure to the town of Bedford
Falls but that achievement comes at a
price. He never gets to live out his
wider dreams of world travel and, at
the peak of his career, he clearly enjoys
no great measure of personal wealth.
Within our profession, there are
countless George Baileys. This year
has been dominated by potential ABS
changes claimed by the consumer
lobby to bring greater competition to
the legal services market. I make no
apology for being a continued
cautious supporter of these changes,
but we must be careful not to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. High
street solicitors provide a daily and
invaluable advice service, for which
little by way of fees is ever charged.
Clients are given one-off advice, by no
means all of it strictly legal advice,
which nonetheless provides
reassurance or guidance of almost
unquantifiable benefit to them. Local
solicitors also play a key role in
bringing and applying their
professional skills to the assistance of
numerous voluntary organisations:
churches, community groups, worthy
President
A tale for our times
www.lawscotjobs.co.uk
President
Ian Smart
We must be
careful not to
throw the baby
out with the
bathwater. High
street solicitors
provide a daily
and invaluable
advice service,
for which little
by way of fees
is ever charged
campaigns and local charities.
In Bedford Falls, George Bailey runs
a savings and loan, the US equivalent
of a traditional British building
society. In the 1980s and 90s the
establishment consensus in the USA
was that such institutions were
inefficient and anachronistic. They
had to be opened up to the rigour
and opportunity of the market.
Without the installation of
appropriate safeguards, the result was
disastrous. Insufficiently monitored
pursuit of profit led to numerous
cases of financial collapse and a not
insignificant number of
straightforward frauds. Millions of
innocent savers were placed in danger
of personal ruin. Even when federal
intervention saved the day, choice, far
from being widened as originally
intended, was ultimately greatly
curtailed. Further, the financial
landscape which then remained was
the one which itself collapsed so
spectacularly over the last two years.
The message of all this is not that
change is bad. It is however that the
consequences of change need to be
thought through, and undesirable
consequence anticipated by appropriate
regulation. You have my assurance that
in the ongoing ABS process, that
principle will be at the very forefront of
the Society’s deliberations.
So that’s my festive message.
All that remains is for me to wish all
of you all a very merry Christmas and
a happy and prosperous New Year.
See you in 2010.
December 09 theJournal / 7