Key Findings
LEGAL SERVICES IN RURAL WALES: A STUDY OF LAW FIRMS OUTSIDE METROPOLITAN SOUTH WALES
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study concerns the health and vitality (perhaps even viability) of rural law firms in Wales, and was funded by the Law Society as a result of concern at some of the changes that such firms now face. The study, which was carried out by the ESRC BRASS Research Centre at Cardiff University, is based on an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data relating to law forms across Wales other than in the urban centres of Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. The quantitative data is taken from the REGIS database, which has allowed the compilation of a profile on both solicitors’ firms in these areas as well as individual solicitors. The qualitative data has been gained through partner level interviews in five chosen towns representing different regions within Wales. These interviews have provided material to enrich the statistical information and cover issues such as: the nature of the firm; the type and sources of work; the growth and health of the firm; its significance to the local area; and the staffing and resources of the firm.
Following an introduction and a more detailed explanation of the methodology employed in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 goes on to review the value of legal services in local areas. This is followed by the presentation of statistical information on the profession in rural Wales in Chapter 3. There then follow three chapters presenting the findings of the qualitative survey material. The first of these, Chapter 4 presents information on the working lives of rural solicitors covering issues such as: job satisfaction; quality of life issues; patterns of working; sources of work; and the significance of local connections. Chapter 5 moves on to review how law firms are managed and this section includes material on: staffing; types of services offered with particular regard to legally aided work; and client relationships. In the last substantive Chapter (6) we turn to the future of rural legal practice, exploring areas such as: the challenges lying ahead; the ability of firms to cope with change; the management capacity of firms; and the longer term sustainability of rural law firms of the type studied.
Below we set out in bullet point form some key elements of our findings. Broadly the picture is of a resilient profession but one that is on any analysis waning rather than growing as recruitment into training within the firms is inadequate to provide for the longer term and already the lateral hire of qualified staff is a matter of some difficulty. This is leading to a population of rural solicitors that is ageing over time without new blood to replenish the firm for the future. This slow decline is not for lack of available demand for legal services but due to a bundle of reasons ranging from regulatory disincentives to lack of management capacity to grow the businesses. Without doubt rural legal services are a vital part of the communities studied and this form of practice offers considerable rewards, not all of them financial, to both the solicitors and the communities within which they practice. The pattern of regression seems capable of being arrested, but only if action is taken soon.
FINDINGS
Introduction
1. Outside the Swansea, Cardiff, Newport conurbations, legal services in Wales are fragile, and this fragility demonstrates itself in a number of ways outlined below;
2. The age profile of solicitors is surprisingly high with well over a quarter of the profession over 50 years old and a mean average age of 46
Training
3. Less than one in five firms has a trainee within the firm, and some unitary authority areas have no lawyers in training, so that the ageing population of solicitors is not being replenished;
4. Even where there are trainees, these tend to be located in urban South Wales with 45% of trainees based in Cardiff alone, and it must be doubtful whether these trainees will migrate elsewhere in Wales on qualification because of the differences in work types and wage structures;
5. Reasons given for not taking trainees included lack of supervisory capacity, inadequate range of available work, financial margins and regulatory impediments;
6. Although firms are inundated with requests for training contracts, their lack of availability means that hiring qualified lawyers has become a matter of great difficulty and sometimes vacancies prove impossible to fill;
Size of firms
7. The size of firm remains small partly as a result of this with one third of firms containing only one qualified solicitor and almost three quarters of firms contain three solicitors or less, but figures show that each solicitor in work creates 1.5 good quality jobs;
8. There is considerable reluctance to expand these firms partly because of staffing difficulties but also because increasing in size adds to the managerial burden without commensurate increases in profitability
9. The solicitor population of these areas is highly experienced with an average of over 20 years in practice (including training) but it can be also resistant to change and slow to exploit opportunity;
10. This appears to be true even where there are clear threats to present work levels (as with home information packs) and these type of changes are greeted with quiet resignation;
11. Certain external changes, court closures providing an excellent example, have had dramatic effects on the law firms and their clients to the detriment of both;
Areas of work
12. The available areas of advice, assistance and representation appear to be narrowing over time, with solicitors abandoning work traditionally publicly funded to move to core areas of privately funded work;
13. Whilst practices are still generalist in nature, solicitors are reluctant to take work outside of the mainstream, leaving significant gaps in available legal services and to some degree the wider regulation of legal service provision have made solicitors much more cautious about the type of work that the firm takes on;
14. A number of firms in the study had ceased to cover publicly funded work and expressed little regret at this decision, but this work is found still in a greater percentage of firms outside South Wales and it remains an important source of work in areas such as the Valleys where there are relatively fewer firms;
15. It was made clear by some respondents that the rates paid for legally aided work governed the quality of representation available and that there was a danger of a two-tier division of private and public legal services;
Sustainability of rural practices
16. On the whole the firms appear financially viable, and with some capacity for growth but without finances proving sufficiently buoyant to allow risk taking or major investment.
17. This is reflected in the fact that less than one third of solicitors are employed as an assistant in the firm with the majority working as a partner, but this dominant structure of partnership may make life difficult for women or others that might want to work more flexible hours;
18. It is very clear that the workload of the solicitor in these areas is very high and firms have a ready supply of work always without recourse to advertising for work, but this may be to the point that not all legal need is satisfied with firms reporting selectivity in the work that they take on;
19. Virtually all of the work is sourced locally with few instructions from outside the immediate area and little evidence of firms innovating in order to offer work to a wider geographical network of clients or showing little enthusiasm for potential alliances with professionals from other disciplines;
Profile of solicitors
20. The profile of the profession is changing remarkably with almost 70 % of trainees now women compared with a population of solicitors in the non-metropolitan areas that is over 60% male;
21. This pattern of change is true in relation to ethnicity with one in eight trainees now from an ethnic group other than white/European notwithstanding that these ethnic groups represent only just over 2% of the population of Wales as a whole;
22. The solicitors often grew up in the areas in which they now practise, and local knowledge was considered a vital component of good client service, but this local link has to some degree protected firms from competition from remote or bulk providers although all accept that client loyalty to a ‘family solicitor’ is breaking down;
23. Nonetheless an important factor in the solicitor remaining in practice in these areas is the professional standing of the firm in the community and many of our respondents played a significant role in the wider life and health of the local community;
24. Solicitors speak highly of the satisfaction of working within local communities and believe their quality of life, notwithstanding long hours, to be enhanced;
25. Solicitors supported the concept of continuing professional development and seemed to take the obligations seriously, although there was a shortage of relevant local provision and a somewhat narrow view of appropriate CPD activity – in particular business and management skills, though lacking, were largely ignored;
Management and client care
26. Management and dealing with (what was seen as) a regulatory burden was seen as an unwelcome chore, diverting time away from the practice of law rather than an important discipline in developing the business and the burden was seen to be disproportionately high with little allowance given by for size of firm or rural context;
27. By way of illustration, firms made at best modest use of information technology and in some cases it had made no impact whatsoever on the practice;
28. The provision of advice and assistance in the Welsh language appears to be an important consideration for the client depending on geography and there is a willingness to ensure provision;
29. In general terms there was a high level of client service and particular client needs caused through (e.g.) disability would be met by home visiting as necessary and this type of relationship was reciprocated by the readiness of private clients in the rural communities to pay for good service;
Conclusion
30. Practices are slowly thinning out in the communities visited with instances in which firms close with no available buyers or partners for merger and although there is no immediate prospect of Welsh towns without legal services’ provision, this pattern shows no sign of abating and, given the age profile of the profession and the lack of new blood into these practices, legal services will disappear in some communities unless action is taken now.
Robert Lee and Alex Franklin, BRASS, Cardiff University
