Mears gives up politics after defeat

Twice defeated presidential candidate Martin Mears has announced that he will withdraw from front-line Law Society politics but will stay on as a member of the council.

Mears, who lost last week's election by a margin of 8,000 votes to rival Phillip Sycamore, said: "I always said if I lost by one vote I would retire from Law Society politics."

He also said that if his anti-Law Society magazine, Caterpillar, was to continue, it may need to become a more broadly-based legal journal because it was obvious that solicitors were not interested in society politics.

Mears, who was president in 1995 and narrowly lost to Tony Girling last year, said repeated attacks by his former ally Robert Sayer were behind his defeat. Sayer was elected into office as deputy vice-president with Sycamore and vice-president Michael Mathews.

Mears gave the new team little chance of changing Chancery Lane because, he said, the attitudes of its inhabitants were set in stone.