The North West Attorneys Council is an official substructure of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces representing attorneys practising in the North West province.

The main purpose and objectives of the Council are not only to represent and administer attorneys practicing in the province as part of the organised profession, but also, as a group, ensure that the general public and local communities in the province are efficiently and properly served by such attorneys.

The Council is therefore a source of information to the general public regarding attorneys and their activities and the services rendered by them. This includes information relating to the services rendered by attorneys as well as general information such as:

• How to lodge a complaint against an attorney

• What can reasonably be expected by a client when making use of the services of an attorney

• The basic legal background on topics such as divorce, maintenance, buying, selling and letting property, wills, the execution of deceased estates and debt collection.

The Council is representative of all races and genders and consists of 12 attorneys from the province who are elected by their colleagues. The Council is supported by an administrative infrastructure.

You are welcome to communicate with the Council to obtain any relevant information relating to the attorneys profession.

STATISTICS ON THE MEMBER PROFILE OF THE NORTH WEST ATTORNEYS COUNCIL

The member profile of the North West Attorneys Council as at 16 January 2012 is as follows:

A profile of the firms in the province, based on the number of partners within the firm, has been compiled and is summarised in the graph below.

Single practitioners make up 77% of the membership base of the North West Attorneys Council. These statistics indicate that there may be a need for the North West Attorneys Council to focus on projects aimed at assisting single practitioners to ensure the success of their firms.

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

General Planning / Strategy

SUGGESTIONS ON THE CONTINUATION OF EXISTING PROJECTS

1.  Attorneys Week

1. Members of the public have become used to the fact that there is an annual project under which free advice is offered and many enquiries are received from members of the public wanting to know when such a week will be held.

Providing free consultations to members of the public serves to boost the image of the attorneys’ profession and counters the public perception that legal services are out of reach for most members of the public due to the cost implications.

Possible focus areas for an Attorneys Week, to be presented during 2012, include:

• Property Law

• Personal injury, RAF and Medical Negligence Matters

• Debt-related and financial matters

• Small business owners

• General Attorneys Week

1.  Generic posters advertising attorneys’ services

Generic posters advising members of the public to visit the North West Attorneys Council website or to contact the Law Society of the Northern Provinces to obtain the contact details of an attorney in their area were designed during 2011.

Members were informed of the project and invited to order posters through the distribution of a letter which was e-mailed to all members. A very small percentage of members responded and requested posters. The posters were further distributed to various government entities including police stations, clinics, hospitals and libraries.

Members of the public are often not aware of the vast range of services which attorneys could render to them. The generic marketing posters are a highly effective and low cost tool to draw the attention of members of the public to the types of matters attorneys could assist them with.

Consideration could be given to again advertise the project to members in the North West Province. It is suggested that the possibility of publishing the information relating to the project at the top of the NewsFlash for a number of consecutive weeks should be considered.

Copies of the generic marketing posters are annexed to this report.

1.  Brochures

The North West Attorneys Council revised a number of existing marketing brochures during 2009. The brochures cover the following topics:

• Buying and Selling a House
• Contracts
• Credit Agreements
• Deceased Estates
• Emoluments Attachment Orders
• Letting Property
• Small Claims Court
• Working with Your Attorney
• You and Your Attorney

Copies of the revised brochures are annexed to this report.

Generic brochures provide an invaluable marketing tool to attorneys’ firms by advertising the services which could be rendered to members of the public.

Consideration could be given to advertising the project to members in the North West Province. It is suggested that the possibility of publishing the information relating to the project at the top of the NewsFlash for a number of consecutive weeks should be considered.

SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW PROJECTS

1.  Marketing tools for single practitioners

The Communication Unit has compiled a document consisting of a number of short articles on a variety of subjects relating to the marketing of attorneys firms.

It is suggested that the Council should consider sending each of these short articles to members through a NewsFlash on a weekly basis. Members can then compile a database of the articles that are of interest to them.

By sending such weekly articles to members, the North West Attorneys Council will ensure that it remains visible to its members and will render a service to members by educating them on various ways in which they can market their firms and the services they render.

After all of the articles have been distributed to members, further input can be requested from the members and members could then indicate whether they would value receiving all of the articles in the form of a printed and bound booklet.

All of the articles can further be added to the website of the North West Attorneys Council and could thus be made available to members as an easy access reference library of marketing advice.

Excerpts could further be made from the series of articles aimed at single practitioners which was authored by Mr Piet Langenhoven. The articles were initially published as a
supplement to Society News in 2007. The items were recently updated and published as a booklet insert in Society News.

PROJECTS

YEAR PROGRAMME

Seminars

The following seminar topics were identified at a meeting of the North West Attorneys Council, which was held on 8 November 2011:

The Law Society of the Northern Provinces will be presenting a seminar on Court Practice and Procedures aimed at candidate attorneys preparing for the admission examinations on 8 February 2012. The seminar is presented to candidate attorneys free of charge and the costs are covered through SASSETA funding. The seminar will be presented by Mr Dawie Beyers.

The Law Society has applied to SASSETA for further funding which will be used to present seminars on Attorneys’ Practice and Ethics and Estates. These seminars will also be aimed at candidate attorneys preparing for the admission examinations.

HESTER BEZUIDENHOUT