Understandable pique at The Law Society Gazette, the weekly magazine and website published by the Law Society of England and Wales, as it seemed to feature in BBC1’s legal thriller, Showtrial.
However, on closer inspection the programme-makers had copied the Gazette’s web design but used the logo of a fictional “British Legal Association”. The society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, will be pleased with the glamorous duty solicitor played by Tracy Ifeachor. In the first episode on Sunday the 36-year-old actress portrayed the solicitor in the style of a catwalk model.
The reality, as the society knows from its research, is different. The average age of duty solicitors is 47. The situation is worse in Bristol, where Showtrial is set: 55 per cent of local duty solicitors are over 50.
Stop the presses
Staying with the Gazette, as forecast in these pages two months ago the title is folding its weekly print edition and will be available online only from the new year.
The loss of recruitment advertising to free online sites will be a significant factor as the Gazette’s print edition goes the same way as previous weekly rivals The Lawyer and Legal Week.
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The Gazette has a print circulation of more than 68,000, but the Law Society refused to divulge if it makes a profit.
In praise of pro bono
Thanks to the New Law Journal for a walk down Pro Bono Week memory lane. The annual event celebrates its 20th birthday this week and the magazine recalled Michael Napier, a former Law Society president who was the week’s launch “tsar”, saying he wanted to create “intergalactic pro bono”. He tells the magazine that he was “thinking big” at the time.
Nonetheless, the week is dogged by controversy, with many lawyers working in publicly funded areas of law claiming that encouraging ill-qualified City lawyers to provide free public law advice gives the government an excuse to keep cutting legal aid budgets.
Best Law Firms 2022
The only annual legal profession survey that matters returns this week in print and online at thetimes.co.uk/bestlawfirms.
The Times Best Law Firms 2022 list includes 34 new entries in the 200-strong league table for England and Wales and four in the 40 top firms in Scotland. Our list relies completely on lawyers voting for other lawyers. So if lawyers don’t like the results, they only have themselves to blame.
