During the past 12 months the Law Society's Commerce & Industry Group (C&I Group) has focused on a number of key issues that have been thrown up in the profession as a whole and the in-house profession in particular.

In a post-Enron environment, corporate governance issues have highlighted the importance, complexity and transparency of the role of lawyers working in business.

As well as the potential abolition of Rule 4 (which will permit employed lawyers to advise members of the public), confirmation of the group's 'position' is regularly sought on issues as diverse as conflict, privilege, confidentiality, the US' Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rules.

The immediate clamour from the media and regulators alike for the C&I Group view has highlighted the difficulties inherent, not only in forming a representative view on behalf of the more than 10,000 lawyers working in commerce and industry, but in expressing that view on their behalf.

Not only was there no mechanism for canvassing members' views on these issues, the limitations of the existing C&I Group structure and resources meant that we had considerable difficulties in representing those views.

Historically, membership of the C&I Group, (the unincorporated association), has been limited to solicitors working in commerce and industry. But practically speaking, since we were reliant on the Law Society to provide us with membership information, this meant only in-house solicitors with practising certificates.

In reality, many solicitors who work in-house do not hold a practising certificate and it became clear to us that these solicitors and the wider in-house community needed a representative body.

In 2002 we launched a new C&I Group website to provide an effective device for communicating with our members, but we quickly started to receive registrations from in-house solicitors without practising certificates, employed barristers, paralegals and legal executives. Although we had provided an opportunity to 'talk' to our membership, we also discovered members that we did not know we had.

It was also clear that the additional and wider membership community had concerns, which needed to be addressed. Against this background we took a careful look at the structure of the group.

C&I Group Services
The first and most important issue was how the structure might 'evolve', enabling it to function with a wider membership. It soon became clear that this would not be possible using the existing unincorporated association as the vehicle, since this association was limited to those holding practising certificates only.

The solution came in the formation of a new company limited by guarantee. The formation of C&I Group Services – the incorporated group which became active in December 2001 – enables us to embrace the larger community of lawyers working in commerce and industry.

For the first time, membership of C&I Group is now open to anyone working in a legal capacity within commerce and industry, not just in-house solicitors and is symbolic of our organic growth and relevance as a group.

Certain C&I Group board members, in particular Ann Page and Lara Oyesanya, the group's director of professional standards and deputy vice chair-elect, continue to sit on the executive committee of the unincorporated association. In this capacity, the association is very much involved – and will continue to be involved – with procedural and regulatory matters, in close liaison with the Law Society.

Corporate governance
The enormous concern of many in-house lawyers and the many questions raised in this connection, made it increasingly imperative that the group fully understand the issues and the thinking on corporate governance and corporate responsibility.

An initial consultation process began with informal networking. A breakfast workshop followed, hosted by City law firm Simmons & Simmons. Then came our consultation paper, designed as a 'prompt' for member input and to ensure that the group's progress was focused on the right issues. Fascinating and constructive feedback from this, together with some lively debate in the course of an initial series of regional 'Scapegoat or Saviour?' themed dinners, resulted in the launch of the C&I Corporate Governance Committee earlier this year.

This committee has responsibility for co-ordinating corporate governance matters on behalf of members. As well as lobbying and representing membership at the highest levels, its remit will include the provision of appropriate training and documentation. The work of the C&I Corporate Governance Committee will also extend to producing an official C&I Corporate Governance Guide for our legal director/general counsel members.

Funding
Our national sponsorship arrangement with law firm DLA takes effect this month – the first time private practice has sponsored C&I on a national basis. DLA's support will not only ensure the continuance of the 'Scapegoat or Saviour?' consultation process, but the firm's national assistance, combined with the contributions of our other valued regional sponsors, will assist the group in the somewhat daunting task of helping us to understand the motivation and the needs of our expanded membership.

In the immediate future the plan is to move the C&I Group to a subscription-based membership.

Although membership of the unincorporated association will remain automatic (and free of charge) for solicitors in commerce and industry, the greater the expansion of C&I Group membership to the wider in-house legal community, the more we do (and want to do) for that expanded membership, the more imperative the need will be for C&I Group Services Ltd to become self-financing.

Our aspirations are two-fold and very clear – we want both to continue to lobby for change in conjunction with the Law Society and be the voice of the wider 'in-house' profession. We have put in place the structure to enable this to happen; we have taken steps to enable the views of as many
in-house lawyers as possible to be heard and we will represent those views as best we are able.

Sarah Sheehan is co-chair of the C&I Group with Ann Page. She is also project consultant at
Capsoft UK.