FIONA WOOLF has good reason to be more than usually cheerful. “I would be a very happy woman,” declared the new president of the Law Society last week. “I would be delighted if public opinion swelled to take these proposals off the table. We are a nation of buyers and sellers of houses and I’m not sure what problem these proposals are meant to fix. They’re a tax on house sales that will cost money and achieve nothing.” She was talking about the compulsory home information packs that were due to take effect next year. Two days later, the plans had been scrapped.

It was a particularly propitious start to her one-year term as leader of the 100,000-strong solicitors’ profession in England and Wales. Next up is the Legal Services Bill: today Lord Hunt of Wirral’s scrutiny committee publishes its report on the Bill and any concerns the peers and MPs may have. Woolf has described the Bill as a Sword of Damocles hanging over the profession — a threat to its independence that most lawyers did not appreciate.

The Bill gives the proposed Legal Services Board — the new over-arching regulatory body for the legal profession — a host of wide and unnecessary powers, she said: these include a power to set performance standards and targets (“which makes no sense for a regulator such as the Law Society, which makes its own rules”); and with it a power to intervene in firms for failure to perform. This, she says, is “ truly scary. It could mean our being directly regulated by government quango if we fail some vague subjective test in the opinion of the board. It could direct that all solicitors’ screensavers be coloured blue, if the board wanted.”

Woolf, a corporate lawyer and now a consultant with CMS Cameron McKenna, knows all about regulation. She has spent 17 years globe-trotting to advise more than 25 governments, other clients in the private sector and the World Bank, creating a specialist practice in energy law and being appointed CBE for work on electricity reforms.

“It’s what I call the chardonnay effect,” she says. “There would be lip service to consultation but in reality, the powers are so heavy that over the second glass of chardonnay, the chairman of our regulatory board would have to agree — knowing that whatever was proposed could be pushed through anyway.” The White Paper preceding the Bill said nothing about the extensive powers for the lay-dominated board, she added. “Lord Falconer (of Thoroton) gave us assurances that it was intended to be light-touch regulation but instead we have Model A (the most heavy) by the backdoor.”

Woolf also makes the point that if a regulator is given a power, it will use it. “Look at Ofgem — it’s still looking for a role and making pronouncements about how the gas and electricity market is working. And there are dangers to the profession’s practising rights in other legal markets. Some professions will look at any excuse to deny us market access by saying that we are directly regulated by government, in breach of UN principles; or impose conditions on the way we practise, making it difficult to compete with local lawyers.” City lawyers, she adds, are very exercised about it.

As the first female City solicitor to become president of the profession, she should know; and being plugged into what they want should help to keep the City on side at a time when the society is having to justify its work for the corporate end of the profession. Just to make sure, Woolf plans an ambitious programme of visits to each of the top 100 commercial firms across England and Wales. “I’m determined to die in the attempt!” Reforms may include a review of practice rules that need a 21st-century eye cast on them, she says. One idea, from Lovells, is that monies left unclaimed in clients’ accounts be used for charitable work. Another is to scrap the requirement to keep a paper copy of every e-mail. She’s keen, too, to tap into the 40 per cent of solicitors under ten years’ qualification and fully backs the Young Law Society, a new venture by the Trainee and Young Solicitors’ Groups.

And what of the other threat to the profession’s future — the Carter report on legal aid? Woolf has not done legal aid work but has worked on similar rates for the World Bank. “I have strong feelings about the underlying economic assumptions of the Carter report,” she says. “I remain to be convinced that the ‘big is beautiful’ model can be made to work. I’ ve done a lot of work putting markets in place in gas and electricity and I question if it can be done.” Legal aid practitioners could not control the market in which they worked because they could not control time spent, for instance, on travel or waiting. “But drivers of costs such as courts and the police were outside Lord Carter’s remit. So it could be grossly unfair to practitioners.”

Woolf married — rather late in life — after meeting her husband, Nicholas, a tax adviser, in the middle of an electricity privatisation which delayed their wedding. She has two adult step-children “of whom I am amazingly proud”. She has not, therefore, had to juggle a career with young children. But the position of such women is a concern: she joined the Law Society council originally as the member for the Association of Women Solicitors — the president, she recalls, was quite taken aback on discovering that she was not a family lawyer, as he had hoped, but a corporate one. The City has gone a long way, she says, in terms of flexible partnerships but more can be done. And she would like to see eliminated the pay gap between some female and male solicitors with professional sanctions against firms, if needs be. “It’s something I owe the AWS.”

In the nicest possible way, Woolf is therefore on the warpath, these top 100 firms her first target. And if sellers’ packs are anything to go by, she has the benefit of a fair wind.

FIONA WOOLF – THE FACTS

• Age: 57, married to Nicholas — two children
• Studied law at Keele University
• Diploma in Comparative Law from University of Strasbourg
• Qualified as solicitor in 1973; worked in corporate and banking fields at Clifford Chance
• Partner (corporate law) in 1981 in law firm McKenna & Co. Now a consultant
• Built energy and projects practice spanning law, engineering and economics
• Member of Law Society Council since 1987
• Likes opera, wine and singing

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