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Scottish Young Lawyers Association Debate
 
Scotsman Newspaper Building, EdinburghThursday 29 October 2009, 6.45pm
Mike Dailly’s opening speech for the Opposition
If every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them,then every profession must be judged by how it treats its newest members.We are all humble and eager to please when we start out in our legal careers,and it is those virtues which can make trainee solicitors vulnerable.Whenever someone, or something, is vulnerable the free market response isto exploit that vulnerability, and make a profit. Of course the free marketdoesn’t have a code of ethics – which is why we have statutory regulators.We, on the other hand, are permitted to regulate ourselves as lawyersbecause we adhere to a professional code of values and ethics, as aresponsible and trusted profession. Lose that and what do we have?If you support this Motion then I believe we do not deserve to call ourselves ‘aprofession’ – we might as well let Tesco buy and sell us as a commodity andpay the Minimum Wage to everyone. But now is not the time to stray into theLegal Services Bill.If we teach trainee solicitors that it’s ok for lawyers to exploit one another aren’t we paying lip service to the belief we’re something more than a simplesupplier of services? More than a tin of legal beans?
 
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The fact we treat our prisoners with dignity is a sign of a just and fair society.Of course, there have been contradictions such as the medieval practice of slopping-out. The recent slopping-out cases have been distasteful to Scottishpoliticians, but they were absolutely necessary to ensure we didn’t just pay lipservice to our guiding principles.Another medieval practice is for partners to treat trainee solicitors like serfs or skivvies. These practices have no place in the 21
st
Century. Just because
you 
were exploited as a trainee doesn’t mean
you 
should continue the cycle.I would like to set out an argument that as a matter of Scots law this motionmust fall. Having ‘your trainee’ spend most of their days picking up parcels,running personal errands, filing, or occupying the same space as thephotocopier is contrary to the Post-Diploma Training Contract.The contract provides that ‘
The Employer undertakes to provide the Trainee areasonable training in the work of a solicitor within the scope of the employer’s practice
…’.‘
Reasonable training in the work of a solicitor’ 
does not mean leaving a traineeto run a branch office unsupervised, shouting or bawling at them because of your inadequacies, requiring them to spend all day and night photocopying, or dumping unprepared cases or court appearances on them at the last minute.The 2001 Admission as a Solicitor (Scotland) Regulations make provision for intervention by the Council of the Law Society where a trainee is not ‘receivingthe benefits’ he or she ‘should receive from the training contract’.And this is perhaps where it all breaks down. Last year, The Firm magazinereported that there were 632 traineeships in Scotland, and the Law Society of Scotland was happy to report that not one single trainee had ever ‘
formally complained’ 
about the way they were treated.
 
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No problem there then. This entire debate is apparently academic. Is it anywonder trainees can be exploited when technically no exploitation has ever taken place, and in practice firms can get away with it?The elephant in the Law Society’s drawing room was the fact that manytrainees had contacted them with serious concerns, but were told that in order for these to be acted upon they would need to make a formal complaint –which would then be disclosed to the firm.The reality was exploited trainees were too frightened to make a formalcomplaint. For obvious reasons, they feared they might never qualify or havea stain on their future career. Was that a reasonable belief to hold? Well, Ithink so.Consider this. The Law Society of Scotland says ‘we don’t take sides’ in thesematters. So you have to ask yourself why not? Only lawyers dealing withother lawyers could score such an own goal.There is no equality of arms between a trainee solicitor and his or her firm –so there is every possibility that a trainee solicitor would submit a complaintand lose hands down. We all have a professional obligation to stick up for our trainee solicitors and the current system is plain wrong.Last year, a number of trainee solicitors told me about the way they had beenmistreated. I spoke to The Firm’s Editor, Steven Raeburn, and he and histeam kicked off a high profile campaign to tackle trainee abuse and injustice.I say abuse and injustice. Exploitation comes in many guises and these areonly two of them. Quite frankly, no-one should consider themselves anofficer of the court if they can go back to their firm and dole out injustice to junior members of staff. Some of the trainee stories that The Firm highlightedlast year included the following examples:
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