On 1 February 2018 the Legal Profession in South Africa will enter a new era and will be regulated in terms of the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 (LPA), through the Legal Practice Council (LPC). The purpose of the LPA is to create a single national statutory body. All legal practitioners will be subject to the regulatory authority of the LPC.
As a result of the LPA coming into full operation, the statutory provincial law societies and Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) will fall away.
The formation of a broad-based professional interest association is imperative to represent the interests of practitioners and to position and promote the legal profession as the rule of law champion, protector and promoter of constitutional rights.
In 2015, the constituent members of the LSSA were consulted on whether there was a need for such an association. This led to the unanimous resolution this year to establish an independent professional association to –
The LSSA has a Task Team working on this.
The representative body will need to be established and be in place before the implementation of the LPA in early 2018.
The LSSA constituents have approved a working document to serve as the basis for discussions. This is not the constitution of the association as that will be developed.
The guiding principles are the core principles that will guide the association throughout its life in all circumstances, irrespective of changes in its goals, strategies, leadership and type of work. These are:
The organisation, members and brand need to be developed in consultation with the profession. These three aspects are separate but interlinked to each other.
The organisational aspects will relate to:
The members – this relates to you as members:
The brand – this will be:
The association will represent you by –
The association will promote you by –
The association will support you by –
Practitioners have a small window of opportunity to shape the future of the profession now. The next step will involve ongoing information-sharing and consultation with the profession. Practitioners will be consulted through online surveys and some direct contact, both through the LSSA and the provincial law societies. The feedback received from these information-sharing and consultation sessions will help develop the value proposition to best suit the needs and requirements of the profession. This much needed ‘new home for legal practitioners’ will only be established through the help of all legal practitioners.
For more information see www.LSSA.org.za under the section ‘Legal practitioners’ and follow the link ‘A new home for legal practitioners’. Alternatively e-mail LSSA@LSSA.org.za and the Task Team members steering this process, will respond to your questions.
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This article was first published in De Rebus in 2016 (Nov) DR 3.