Media set to be snubbed by lawyers
A meeting taking place later this week could see Law Society members in Scotland barred from communicating with members of the media.
The protocol is similar to those presently in place in Scottish Government and Crown Office, and has been proposed with the explicit aim of trying to “manage all aspects of the Society’s media relations”.
The move was initiated by the Board of the Law Society, rather than its Council. It restricts office bearers, Council members and committee members from independently contacting the media, making comment or authoring columns for newspapers or journals.
“All proactive written media communications should be issued by the CMT (Communications & Marketing Team) press office,” it says. “Similarly, all proactive attempts to secure media interviews should be coordinated by the CMT."
It adds: “No proactive media communication should be issued by an individual on behalf of the Law Society prior to a discussion taking place with a CMT communications manager.”
One senior member of the Law Society executive told the independent legal magazine The Firm they were concerned that elected Council members were being silenced by “a small Politburo who are not directly elected by the membership.”
"It appears that the Board of the Law Society of Scotland are no longer satisfied with complete operational and policy control, and now require full control over what anyone thinks and says on Council or in committee," The Firm was told.
The proposed new protocols place a communications manager at the centre of all Society engagement with the media, and restrains Council members from speaking independently to media outlets without consent.
It is proposed that if the members disagree with the strategy of the media team, the president and Chief Executive will resolve the issue, rather than the elected Council.
The new protocol also proposes that the communications manager be given authority to author and issue statements in the name of Council members, consulting only with unspecified “relevant individuals,” rather than the member themselves, potentially bypassing Committee conveners, elected members and the individual in whose name the statement is given.
“Where a communications manager wishes to issue a proactive media comment, they will contact the relevant individuals within the Society to first agree that a proactive communication should be issued and to discuss the nature of that communication. A suitable spokesperson for the Society should be determined, with the statement issued in their name,” the protocol proposes.
The draft protocol does not specify what sanction would be imposed on Society members who breached the protocol. One member of the Law Society Council told The Firm that they feared that expulsion from the Council could result from a failure to adhere to the proposed protocol, if enacted.
Another member of the Law Society Council told The Firm that the protocol may conflict with the Law Society constitution.
It will be debated at the meeting of the Society’s Council on 26 November.