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Accountant
A key sticking point is likely to be the fact that they will have to sign up to the rules of the legal regulatory body. “The specific question is to what extent will there be conflict and friction between the rules of the accountancy bodies and the law regulators? That’s something that needs to be looked at in detail”.
Good idea !
Then, I propose the final year professional body requirement of EIGHT PAPER EXAMS joined with LLB (Hons).
Can someone tell if Philippines requirement is that its CPA are also Law qualified?
I FULLY support the idea of merging Law and Accounting faculties into one. Excellent idea.
Paul
Certainly not, my posting was a reply to paragragh 6 of the telescope posting. My point is that accountancy is open to everyone (and should continue to be so) but that standards of education should be maintained.
This concept has been evolving for more than just a couple of ye
It was an issue that regularly cropped up when I was a partner at BDO (and I left there in 2001).
My view then (and remains) that the facility to join forces will be most attractive to some advisers on the high street.
I frequently encounter two (effectively) sole practitioner accountants who have joined forces to share overheads and yet continue to work on their own clients. If an accountant and a solicitor were to do the same they would have the added benefit of being able to refer work back and forth - which the 2 accountants rarely do as they both do pretty much the same work.
Mark Lee
Tax Advice Network
Keith?
Hi Keith, have read your posting several times and feel that it may need clarification, eg would you preclude certain people from one or more ethnic group or gender from calling themselves an accountant? Or would you like the ACCA to start precluding people from less advantaged backgrounds?
Maybe it's me and late friday?
Class War
A good idea, but many firms of accountants and lawyers already work on projects together. There are issues surrounding the quality of advice given by accountants that need addressing before we mix this up and dumb down the legal profession too. The difference between a good adviser and a bad one is down to subject specific education in most cases. The ACCA have never precluded (as far as I am aware) people from less advantaged backgrounds, the exams however may not be for everyone.
In any case anyone regardless of education, ethnic group, gender or background is able to call themselves an accountant, since there is no protection for this term.
Help me find a good lawyer
I have spent 20 years in practice trying to find a firm of solicitors to work with , who :
Answer their phone quickly
Reply to correspondence promptly
Deal with instructions promptly
Are proactive
Are pragmatic
Have empathy with clients
Understand the commercial realities of running a business (including their own)
Know what clients' need
Take time to understand a client's business
Do not charge excessively
Are willing to speculate time to gain a long term client
Can explain complex legislation in a way clients can understand, then advise the options
I could go on
If there is such a law firm in my neck of the woods (EC2), I would love to hear from them
I
Looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
This article tells us all about what's wrong with the accountancy profession and why a merger with the legal profession could benefit both.
For whom do both professions exist? No, not for you, Mr or Ms Accountant. Your job isn't there to provide you with a comfortable and secure living. Rather, your job exists because someone - indeed many people - want to buy the services which you humbly offer. So the paramount consideration and question for accountants (and lawyers) is: What can they offer the public and what does the public want by way of these professional services?
The first thing the public want is accessibility. Older readers may remember how stuffy and inaccessible the High Street banks used to be forty or so years ago. Banks didn't like working people and tended to treat them with distain. As a working-class person in the late 1960s, I couldn't get a mortgage from either a bank or a building society to buy a 4-bedroomed Victorian house because it was built in the 1880s and, instead, had to get a mortgage from the local city council. In contrast, an upper-class director of the firm I worked for easily obtained a huge loan from a bank to buy a tumbledown manor house that had failed numerous building surveys.
On the point of accessibility: accountants, like some lawyers, can give off an intimidating, patronising and off-putting attitude towards many ordinary people who want to seek advice about a financial matter, whether taxation, financial or investments.
In particular, they tend to treat with distain those who they believe not to have much money, preferring instead to deal only (perhaps exclusively) with the wealthy. In actual fact, a company like Tesco proves that many customers spending a little can be 'a nice little earner.'
It's not just the 'ordinary man and woman in the street' who is intiminated and turned off by some accountants. Small, often self-made, business people frequently find many accountants, too many of whom are drawn (unacceptably these days) from the middle-class, to be boorish and snobbish when they (reluctantly) seek and use accountants' services as they are forced to do when dealing with the complexity of the taxation regime. Yes, and the same alas applies perhaps more so to those offering legal services.
Apart from a major attitude change on the part of those providing accountancy and legal services, both professions need wider access into them by those who are currently under-represented, such as members of the ethnic population, women, those from working-class backgrounds and, dare I say (yes, I will), those from the growing under-class who have and are disadvantaged by the inadequacies of the State education system.
A 'one-stop shop' where people can buy accountancy and legal services (and any other related services) would seem to make sense if by doing that people are able to better access the services they need and feel more confident when doing so.
Friday comment
I feel this topic deserves more than I'm about to give it but it's Friday before a bank holiday weekend.
Given the increasing debate(s) over what constitutes an accountant, eg https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=198504, can you imagine it all going 3 dimensional? "I don't care how big & shiney your letters are there's no way I'm using treasury tags to file papers!"
Roll on retirement.