Thursday 12 July 2012 by Eduardo Reyes

'Crowd-sourced' innovations can help lawyers temper the worst excesses of government cuts to access to justice, incoming Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff said this week.

Scott-Moncrieff told the Gazette that she intends to focus her presidency on two overlapping concerns. 'The first is around access to justice, a principle which unites the profession,' she said. 'With reductions in legal aid, uncertainty over CFA changes and many people worried about the costs of legal representation, there is a challenge to the profession and the Law Society to consider how we can help solicitors in this type of contentious work to serve clients and would-be clients.'

Her second concern is the 'challenging market for many of our members, particularly high street firms, in tough times economically'.

The president pointed to the current use of the Gazette's 16,000-strong group on the social network LinkedIn, where members post discussion topics relating to practice management. She has joined this group, and the 'legal aid and access to justice' sub-group, and said she will take part in its discussions and use her presidency to promote the groups as forums for the profession.

'I hope that through encouraging dialogue with our members, working in whatever area of law and whatever sized firm, we can "crowd-source" innovative approaches to these issues - providing our members with a range of options for tackling the challenges they face,' Scott-Moncrieff said.

• Join the Gazette's LinkedIn group.