Dean says changes to stables are part of an ongoing 'evolutionary' process

Published on Monday 23 April 2007 00:55

WHEN John Campbell QC announced last year that he was breaking away from Faculty Services Limited (FSL) to set up an alternative, Oracle Chambers, only one other advocate was willing to join him.

But, since the autumn, it has become clear that many other counsel have shared his frustrations with FSL and what they saw as the archaic stable system.

Since the Faculty of Advocates voted to allow stables to "devolve" from FSL, almost all have decided to embrace the opportunity for greater flexibility to organise their practice.

Stable will continue to pay a percentage of their fee income for FSL services - including IT, clerking and fee rendering and collection - but they can now choose their members, offer incentives to their clerks and arrange their own marketing.

Somewhat ironically, owing to contractual issues with FSL Oracle has yet to start its own operations. But Campbell's decision is widely regarded as the catalyst for the devolution fever now sweeping through Parliament House.

Yet Roy Martin QC, the Dean of Faculty, suggests that little has changed in the advocate's role and that the changes to working arrangements are all part of an "evolutionary" process:

"The way in which advocates have practised for many, many years - and I am going back to the 19th century, if not before - is that we are all independent legal practitioners specialising in advocacy, representing people in courts, tribunals and so on," he says.

"Until 1971 and the formation of FSL, the clerks were essentially independent. Faculty Services was created to spread costs and to assist those coming in to the faculty. I think it's achieved a great deal in those respects.

"What has happened in the last five years is the legal services market in Scotland and the rest of the UK has become much more focused on particular skills for particular pieces of work. The result of that has been a greater degree of specialisation.

"The devolution arrangement has been portrayed in the press as a radical departure. I would suggest it is not. It introduces a greater degree of flexibility in the way our services are provided."

Martin also rejects any suggestion that the devolution model would not have been introduced without Campbell's departure from FSL.

"This would have happened anyway," he says. "The individual circumstance that brought it about could have been anything.

"The way the market has developed has meant we needed to look at the way we provided support services for the way in which we practise.

"I see this as an evolutionary process and it will continue to develop in the future. It is a process that is by no means concluded.

"Notwithstanding the changes in our organisation that have been discussed in the last few months and the suggestions that have emerged that somehow this represents a departure from what has been the Faculty of Advocates, I would like to suggest that what is happening is the very opposite.

"Members of Faculty are using their initiative to provide benefits to the legal services market and to do so in a variety of ways that demonstrate a confidence in the future."