Jeremy Peat: Do you want to be leaders in your field, or merely followers?

IN 2007, when the WS Society’s accreditation initiative was still in the early development stage, I was approached to join the board of Signet Accreditation, chaired by Lord Cullen of Whitekirk. I was immediately struck by the overall calibre of the board, but also impressed by the fact that this was an example of the legal profession voluntarily seeking to raise its standards.

I was also impressed that non-lawyers were represented on the board, which reflected another commendable principle behind the initiative – to incorporate the expectations of clients in the standards being set. This was not wholly an exercise in lawyers themselves reinforcing what they like to see in other lawyers. It was a genuine attempt to encourage lawyers to better understand and satisfy the client from the client’s perspective and, as a consumer of legal services, I found this an innovative and positive concept.

Over the past few years, I have been delighted to be involved with, and to witness, the continuing contributions and commitment of a vast number of senior practising solicitors, academics from a number of disciplines, and other senior professionals towards developing and implementing the Signet Accreditation.

The assessment process is a rigorous one which assesses candidates against objective standards of competency in technical legal ability and “soft” skills, across three different, but real-to-life, examination elements.

The practicality of the assessments, which include a video-recorded client meeting and responses to different situations and types of contact, combined with the standards of competency, ensures that the assessment process is robust and challenging for candidates.

Consequently, it is also a meaningful achievement for solicitors to become accredited. Everything is assessed in context and relative to purpose. The assessment is not just about what you know but about how you communicate and use that knowledge to add value from a client’s point of view. The result is that accreditation says something about a lawyer’s real effectiveness and value from the client’s perspective.

The programme rightly recognises that skills such as being a good communicator and appreciating context are intrinsic to being a good lawyer, not just desirable add-ons. That may not be news to readers of this newspaper, but what may be novel is the idea of having to demonstrate these qualities in an assessment against objective standards in order to be accredited in a specialist practice area. This is very different from simply submitting credentials and peer references for scrutiny by a committee which has been, and remains, the time-honoured route to specialist accreditation for Scottish solicitors.

I am an economist by trade and know full well that, in the current climate, there is a lot of pressure to reduce discretionary spend – which we must accept is how accreditation is regarded. But there is such a thing as false economy. Cutting cost on training, development, benchmarking and assuring quality can come back to haunt an organisation.

Further I have no doubt that, long term, post-qualification accreditation by assessment is a direction of travel the legal profession is going to have to take. The choice for solicitors and their firms is whether they are leaders in their field or merely followers.

I was pleased to see the president of the Law Society of Scotland, Cameron Ritchie, single out the WS Society’s Signet Accreditation in such a positive manner. He is right when he says it points the way for the future of post-qualification professional development, and I am pleased that the Law Society of Scotland recognises the true value of the work put in on our programme.

The Signet Accreditation is a great opportunity for lawyers and their firms to differentiate themselves in a meaningful way. I believe a challenge like this is something that all solicitors in Scotland should be considering if individually and collectively they want to be the very best that they can be, and to provide the best and most-valued service to customers.

• Jeremy Peat is a commentator on economic and business matters and ex-group chief economist of RBS. He is also on the board of the WS Society’s initiative to assess and accredit Scottish solicitors in specialist areas of practice.