Newcastle Law Society has had a busy start to 2025.  We held our first Standing Committee meeting on 13 January with the February one scheduled for 17 February.  We have a couple of spare places on the Committee, please let us know if you would like to be involved.

On 9 January I attended a webinar hosted by The Law Society on AI, Law and Legal Training.  Learning how to deal with, use and question AI is becoming an integral part of our training programmes.

We are members of the County Societies Group of Local Law Societies and on 14 January we attended a regular meeting of the group.  The main focus of the agenda was the Group's joint response to the Consumer Protection consultation being conducted by the SRA.  Remember a central part of this consultation is the operation of Solicitor client accounts.  If you have any contributions to this consultation, please let us know.

Continuing the AI theme, on 29 January we hosted our third LegalTech seminar with the University of Law.  It was another well attended event and part of our LegalTech initiative in the region.  As our Vice President, Paul Brown, noted, we are forming a steering group of legal and tech people to help drive the initiative forward.  Please let us know if you would like to be included in this group.

The following day I carried out the final Area Visit of my Presidential year to North Northumberland.  Thank you to the attendees.  It was a very informative and interesting session.  We enjoyed receiving your views and ideas on how to make the legal sector bigger and better in the region.

On the 5^th of February we are holding the 7^th Managing Partner/Head of Office Forum. The event is being hosted by The Lawyer magazine and the topic of discussion will be around how best we promote the region and its lawyers.

I look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming events, details of which are contained in this Newsletter.

If you would like any more information about any of the above please contact mail@newcastlelawsociety.co.uk.  Please remember to follow us on LinkedIn to stay up to date with developments - Newcastle Upon Tyne Law Society: Overview | LinkedIn