Law Society of England and Wales has appointed Paul Tennant OBE as interim chief executive.

Robert Bourns, Law Society president, said: “I am delighted to be working with Paul Tennant whilst we finalise arrangements for recruiting a permanent chief executive for the organisation.

“Paul has been chief executive of a large and complex housing organisation but also has a clear understanding of non-executive leadership roles, having been president of the Chartered Institute of Housing. This perspective will be helpful as we consider future ways of working.

“We have a clear business plan for the year focused on understanding and serving our members, transforming our IT and improving our efficiency and Paul will be working with our executive team to deliver our plans.

“Meanwhile, my focus will be on ensuring we represent the profession effectively through a period of significant change and working with council colleagues and others to progress our governance review.

“We have appointed the Good Governance Institute to help us with the governance review and have also brought member perspectives on to our review working group.

“I will say more about the recruitment of a permanent chief executive in due course and in the meantime thank Catherine Dixon for her hard and effective work with the Society.”

Paul Tennant said: “I am looking forward to working with the president, council and staff at the Law Society for the next few months.”