WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SOLE PRACTITIONERS? SUE ALLEN TALKS TO SOME OF THOSE WHO HAVE MADE THE BREAK AND GONE SOLO.With the rise of the mega-firm in the era of the law firm merger, the perennial question surrounding sole practitioners is whether they can survive in a legal landscape where bigger appears to be this year's beautiful.

One indication of what the future holds for sole practitioners may lie in the statistics.

Although the number of sole practitioners increased steadily to a peak of 3,745 in 1997, the last two years have seen their numbers decline to 3,641 by 1999.

Nevertheless, sole practitioner practices still make up a staggering 42.5% of the total number of law firms in England and Wales, although larger practices employ around 90% of solicitors.

Sole practitioners themselves are candid about how difficult the last few years have been.

For many, legal aid franchising and the abolition of the old legal aid system has hit them hard and forced many to drop traditional areas of work.

Manchester-based Paul Boucher, immediate past chairman of the Sole Practitioners Group (SPG), says changes to public funding of cases have been a particular problem for practitioners whose practices were traditionally half legal aid and half private client.

'Those firms have had to decide whether to merge, replace legally aided work with private work or try to go into a niche,' he says.

'There is no reason for sole practitioners not to survive and prosper, but they will have to change tack, change areas of work and adapt to do so.'Contributions to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) have also made it an uphill struggle for some to keep going.

New SPG chairman Peter Williams says SIF payments have 'certainly made life difficult' for sole practitioners in recent years, although he hopes there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.

'We are hopeful that once SIF ends in September, sole practitioners will feel the benefit of open market insurance, where they will be insured on their own record and not doubly penalised simply because they are sole practitioners and, in many cases, conveyancers.'Those sole practitioners who rely on conveyancing also find they are blocked from bank and building society lender panels as they are seen to be too high risk - a risk that Mr Williams says is 'perceived rather than actual'.

He adds: 'What is really baffling is that some major lenders are happy to instruct sole practitioners and others are not.

There appear to be no hard statistics to back up lenders' prejudice.'So if things are tough for sole practitioners, what continues to lure solicitors away from the safety of the firm structure to take the plunge and set up on their own?Although there are probably almost as many reasons why sole practitioners end up going it alone as there are those who have done it, they certainly share common feelings about why they enjoy it and why they think they will always have a place in providing legal services.Mr Williams - who only set up on his own three years ago to specialise in non-contentious property and commercial law - says that becoming a sole practitioner was the best thing he ever did.

'I am making more money now than when I was in partnership because I run a leaner, far more hands-on, streamlined operation.

I am able to concentrate on my ethos of sole practice, which is to offer a personal service to clients.

I am more than convinced that sole practitioners will survive because we give clients a hands-on service, which is what most clients want.'Ask any sole practitioner and they will say the same: there will always be a role for the sole practitioner because clients want a one-to-one service.

Clients, they say, want a solicitor who knows them, their business and their background, and they want to be dealt with by the same solicitor throughout.London niche media law specialist David Price has his own way of putting it: 'I don't particularly like a Prjt a Manger approach.

I would rather go to an Italian delicatessen with a chap who makes up the sandwiches himself and where we have a chat.

I think that clients get better quality with a one-off business where the solicitor takes an interest in their problems and pride in the service they provide.'But while clients may traditionally have liked sole practitioners because they offered a cradle-to-grave service - someone who could convey their house, draft a will, deal with the odd dispute, help develop their business or handle a divorce - the day of the generalist, most agree, is firmly in the past.

'It is getting beyond the ability of most sole practitioners to cover every area to a satisfactory standard.

It is now a question of recognising your strength and playing to it,' Mr Price says.

Nick Trainer, who specialises in representing footballers, says he thinks it would be much harder to survive as a generalist high street sole practitioner.

'These days you've got to have clients who are happy to pay you to do the job.

No client wants to pay you to stand at court for hours waiting for a judge to come free or when there are other problems.

As a sole practitioner, if my clients wouldn't pay, it would be crippling.

In a bigger practice, those kind of fee income problems are lost amongst a larger number of fee-earners.

But while many sole practitioners may be succeeding, Chichester-based criminal specialist Cath McAteer has decided that it is time to throw in the towel and join a larger law firm in the Sussex town as an associate.

'Legal aid rates haven't gone up for six years and franchise requirements mean the cost of an extra secretary dealing with administration.

To keep my business profitable, I would have to move across to doing privately paying matrimonial work and I can't bear the thought of doing that, it doesn't give me a buzz.

The only way I can carry on doing crime is to move to a larger firm,' she says.Ms McAteer is also sceptical about the future for other sole practitioners.

She foresees a mass of amalgamations and thinks that sole practitioners will be 'slated' by open market insurers.

'Commercial insurers will see us as a bad risk, while franchising will push most sole practitioners to do private paying work, which for many will mean conveyancing.

I can see premiums for a sole practitioners doing conveyancing going up rapidly in future.

So if there is a future for sole practitioners, where does it lie? Teresa Shepperson, a sole practitioner in Norwich, agrees that the future lies in specialisation, but in her case, that is coupled with exploiting the potential of the Internet.

Ms Shepperson already has one Web site which allows her to take on-line instructions and provide clients with quotes, and she is shortly to launch a second.

This year, she says, she is in e-profit for the first time - that is, her outlay on hardware and software has now been paid back by fees generated through the Internet.

The great benefit of the Internet to the sole practitioner is that it gives small firms a way to have a presence and get known to a wider public.

Sole practitioners have the advantage over larger firms which often lack imagination and have to push things through partner meetings.

As a sole practitioner, you can decide what you want to do and get on with it, she says.SOLE PRACTITIONERS OFTEN SUFFER MORE STRESS THAN THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN PARTNERSHIPS - BUT IT CAN BE AVOIDED, WRITES JACKY LEWIS.Are sole practitioners more likely to suffer stress than solicitors in partnership? If recent figures cited by SolCare, the solicitors' support network, are to be believed, then they are.

Of the 302 solicitors who have self-referred to SolCare since its inception in February 1997, around one-sixth were sole practitioners suffering stress, depression or alcohol addiction.SolCare's co-ordinator, Barry Pritchard, cites a past study, which showed that 65% of sole practitioners suffered from 'serious personal problems' and a quarter of those experienced 'considerable stress' or 'clinical depression'.

Among those solicitors who worked alone, stress was found to be connected to personal issues of divorce, bereavement and ill health.

This was also highlighted in evidence of gambling and other addictive problems.

But sole practitioners have freely chosen to arrange their working lives in this way - surely this should lead to a lessening of their professional stress? Sarah Angell, former vice-chairwoman of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, has been in sole practice for ten years and has never regretted her choice.

While, at some points, she has felt overwhelmed by her work-load and felt everything was coming at her, nevertheless she is prepared to make enormous sacrifices to remain in control of her own destiny.

She maintains that once solicitors have tasted the independence that sole practice brings, they never look back.

However, she agrees that coping on one's own can often lead to appalling stress.

In fact, she feels at times that she has been spread so thin that she is 'practically transparent'.Sole practitioners constantly have the pressure to familiarise themselves with changes in the law while at the same time managing their work load; and all this without the assistance and support of colleagues.

In periods of rapid change, there is a marked fear of making mistakes when working without colleagues with whom one would normally discuss cases.This is especially the case for those attempting to keep up-to-date in managing the rapid changes to the legal aid system.

Sole practitioners must familiarise themselves with new developments in the law while doing all the work and reorganisation, without the advantage of moral support.

But how much moral support can be had within a partnership? Many sole practitioners believe that it is only in theory that they are missing out.

They are not convinced that working in a partnership would necessarily provide support.

While it is obvious that input from peers and superiors is lacking in sole practice, many feel their independence means not having to look over their shoulder 'to see where the next dagger's coming from'.

On a practical level, the worst problem for the sole practitioner may be finding locum cover for the holidays; in a partnership, a holiday break may well lead to heightened anxiety through fear of changes which may have been made in the partner's absence.

In bad periods, when they feel at their most unsupported, many sole practitioners feel there is the danger of reaching for the bottle or pills.

Having chosen to work on their own, they must develop the ability to live with the solitude and uncertainty of their work world.

In addition, there is the added stress of providing a consistently satisfactory service for all clients.The Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) receives more complaints against sole practi tioners than against solicitors in partnership.

While 16% of solicitors are sole practitioners, they comprise 60% of the cases received by the SDT.

One reason for this may be that sole practitioners have no in-house procedures through which complaints can be soaked up and diffused by senior partners before they reach the tribunal.In most cases, the offences are minor and the SDT often suggests that more support should have been sought by the practitioner.

Complaints often concern tardy service, unanswered letters or failure to keep appropriate accounting.

Sole practitioners sometimes simply cannot manage the administration and the work load they have set themselves.

George Smith (name changed) has only been in sole practice for a few weeks after having worked for ten years in a partnership.

While he feels it to be liberating to have made this life change, he insists that there is one massive caveat - the stress of single-handedly meeting his clients' needs.

Unless everything in his working life falls smoothly into place, in a 'creative time schedule', he feels he will be 'jammed into difficulties'.

If he is in a meeting and hears the unanswered telephone, he is constantly wondering whether he is missing a new business opportunity and feels thinly stretched.

He is now training as a mediator.

He believes a sole practitioner needs to learn the skills that mediation training brings in order to be more closely involved with clients.

His stress levels have lessened as he trains in 'listening skills'.

Sole practice is, for him, the perfect mixture of professional and personal.Roberta Tish, a south London-based sole practitioner, feels she has started to look differently at stress.

She has learned to take on only as many cases as she can manage and even more importantly, she has stopped all her legal aid work.

The over-bureaucratised nature of legal aid caused anxiety in itself, and moving away from that kind of work is 'a joy, a bonus'.

Ms Tish says she is answerable to enough people in her life without having the added complications of having a partner as well.So is sole practice really more stressful? There certainly seems to be a different type of stress involved.

Issues of lack of peer support, isolation and fear of not meeting client expectations would seem uppermost in contributing to stress levels.

Yet ideas of being in partnership and having a colleague to take up the slack often appear to exist in the realms of fantasy.

Ultimately, many sole practitioners suggest that partners tend to look after themselves and in the current climate, large firms merge and de-merge which brings uncertainty to the work place.

But sole practitioners do seem to feel more vulnerable and fearful of not keeping up with legal changes, despite the fact that their independence is of their own doing.

Finally, it has been suggested that trainee solicitors need more training, not only in order that they learn to work to a consistently high standard, but also so that they can effectively manage and run a practice.

Sole practitioners, thus far, have had to learn on the job.SETTING UP IN SOLE PRACTICE TAKES A LOT OF WORK.

LINDA TSANG LOOKS INTO THE ISSUES THAT MUST BE CONSIDEREDJust having your name on the plaque outside your door or even your own Web site may not be the main reason for going solo, but having taken the plunge to strike out on your own, that is just the beginning of the options and opportunities.All the decisions depend on whether the move is to have a local presence, or a niche one, what the market is, and whether the practice i s Web-enabled.

In fact, one of the main factors in making it easier to go solo has been the improvements in IT, which means that solicitors can work from home and be contacted anywhere by mobile phone or laptop.Management consultant Andrew Otterburn says: 'Assuming that you have already answered the question as to why go solo - for example, is it a niche area where you have particular expertise and you can get £250 an hour? - then that's fine.

If it is a more traditional sole practice, then one of the issues you have to look at is the long-term, what happens when you have to pay the capital out and how to deal with the clients.'He adds that initially, 'you have to come up with a personal business plan and be able to pitch that to a lender.

If you are already in practice, then that is less of a problem, and even in the more traditional high street practice, banks will look at your market position and focus to decide whether you have a viable practice'.Sole practitioner and current chair of the Sole Practitioners Group, Peter Williams, lists the other considerations for setting up, such as sorting out banking arrangements and VAT registration, getting a good accountant, and putting professional indemnity insurance in place, as well as dealing with the Legal Services Commission in relation to a panel number and franchising.External quality marks are also useful as a benchmarking tool.

As a sole practitioner, they are all the more important as an objective standard and independent quality kitemark.

Also, in a smaller practice, it is relatively easy to attain a mark, such as the Law Society's Lexcel, because firms with fewer than, say, ten fee-earners can adapt and monitor their systems much faster and easier than firms with 100 fee-earners.In relation to management systems, sole practitioners are the same as anyone else.

They have to look at monthly fees, debtors and profit costs, outstanding disbursements, monthly overheads.

To reduce unit costs, sole practitioners have to learn how to use IT effectively, and also, if they have fee-earning staff, how to delegate efficiently.Mr Otterburn adds: 'One of the most important aspects is how many live cases you have on the go.

Everything can start to go badly wrong when you take on too many cases, and the dilemma is how to turn work away - that is when you have to make the decision to take on an extra fee-earner, but you have to work out the economic case for that as well.'And once you are up and running with enough staff, you have to consider how to attract more clients - how to sell yourself.

Marketing consultant Kim Tasso warns: 'There are thousands of opportunities, and thousands of ideas.

The main thing is to think very carefully about what you are trying to achieve, what the tools are to achieve it and, just as importantly, what the resources are.

Some people plunge in and do what they think is needed without thinking of the long term - you need a strategy for the practice overall, and then you can look at how marketing the practice fits in with that strategy.'Ms Tasso adds: 'You can get carried away with an elaborate, and costly, marketing campaign if you haven't thought through exactly what you are trying to achieve.

In practical terms, you can take advantage of your existing resources, such as using your databases to target the right businesses.

Focusing hard on bankers, accountants and advice bureaux can be fruitful, and more generally, having an effective Web site is also an economic way to market the practice.'Setting up a Web site can cost anything from £5,000 to £50,000 or more, depending on what you want to do.

In specific terms, as Masons IT partner John Fell advises, you have to decide what to call yourself and to make sure that you register a domain name.

He adds: 'You also have to decide whether it is just "here I am, and aren't I wonderful" to whether you are giving information for free, and whether you are giving regular updates and how that is done.' Mr Fell continues: 'You also have to consider how often you update it, and whether you are actually giving legal advice, so that you have to put in the proper caveats and disclaimers.

There is also the problem of the contractual terms - who owns the copyright, and whether payment is up-front, or you can hold payments back - if the ISP Internet service provider owns the copyright, they can stop you taking your Web site elsewhere.'But he adds the most pressing question is how you get anyone to find you, and you have to make sure that your site is accessible at least 99% of the time.

He says: 'You have to have effective meta-tags, such as "law", "solicitors", "corporate", "family", or "property" so that anyone typing in a keyword will get your site.

It may be a temptation to include the name of a leading firm, like Masons, as a hook to get to your site, but that is an abuse and an infringement of a trade mark.'But technology can be a burden as well as a benefit to a sole practitioner or small practice, according to Neil Davidson, founder and head of the Solicitors Chambers in Peterborough, who is also chairman of the Solicitors Chambers Association.

His view is that in all the publicly funded areas of law (where there is increasing competition for less funds) except the niche areas, the smaller firms are going to find their positions increasingly untenable as the burden of administration is rising rapidly.

He continues: 'The smaller the firm, the larger the proportion of administration that has to be done by the fee-earners.

Also, the larger firms are using technology much more effectively and becoming more efficient, and they are using that technology and knowledge management systems to erode the client bases of the smaller firms.

And it is increasingly difficult for any firm to operate without technology, and that brings its own costs.'Mr Davidson adds: 'The real cost to the small firm of technology is unacceptably high.

The effective ratio of people to IT personnel is 33:1, so if you have less than 60 employees, it is just economic to employ two IT staff, and that becomes increasingly uneconomic the smaller the firm.'The sole practitioner can also suffer from lack of cross-referral and marketing - Mr Davidson's solution is for people to combine and share the overheads and administrative costs by forming a solicitors' chambers - as a number of solicitors have done in Peterborough, Carlisle and Brighton.

He is also proposing a virtual solicitors' chambers to be run from one national centre, made up of hundreds of small practices and sole practitioners.

The association is in talks with funders such as the high street banks, and is also looking at the technology.Peter Williams is bullish about the future of sole practitioners.

He says: 'You should have the courage of your convictions if you are coming out of a practice and are confident that you can bring your clients with you.

It is a big step, it's a quantum leap, but most who have done it wish that they had done it ten years before.'SOLE PRACTITIONERS, BY SUE ALLEN-- NOT BEING TOLD WHAT TO DOName: Paul BoucherAge: 51Specialism: Conveyancing, probate, matrimonial and personal injury (pre-issue only)Staff: One full-time and one part-time secretary, and a cashier.Background: Completed five-year articles with Neville Brooke & Co in the heart of the Wythenshawe housing estate in Manchester in 1973.

A year later moved to Clifford Pfeffer solicitors where he remained until 1980 when he left to set up as a sole practitioner in Gorton, Manchester.Why did you become a sole practitioner? 'I wanted to be my own boss and I felt that I had the capability to do it.

I knew I could work on my own initiative and build up a practice while escaping other people's enforced targets and being told what to do.'Do you enjoy being a sole practitioner? 'I used to but as I get older, it is becoming more difficult.

When I started I did everything, mostly common law legal aid work, particularly crime and matrimonial, with a bit of conveyancing to keep fee income up.

Now conveyancing is the mainstay of my practice.

I have done matrimonial work for 20 years as a qualified solicitor and I consider myself wholly capable of doing the work but because I didn't do sufficient volume of work, I couldn't get onto the family law panel and therefore I don't have a franchise.I feel totally let down by the Legal Aid Board and the Law Society who did nothing to help sole practitioners.

I am still doing privately paying matrimonial work, so I am good enough for private clients - but not for legally aided clients.

I had already dropped criminal work in 1986 because it kept me out of the office too much.

Although I do a lot of conveyancing, like many high street sole practitioners, a lot of lenders won't have you on their panels because they think the risk they pose is too high.

When you ask the lenders, there seems to be no hard evidence to back up this prejudice, which many admit seems to be more perceived than real.

It doesn't stop them doing it though.'What do you think the future will be for sole practitioners? 'I think the future will be good because it comes down to personal service and clients like that.

In some ways, the changes to legal aid will force practitioners to concentrate on narrow areas of work they do best.

Most sole practitioners are also hoping that their insurance premiums will reduce when the Solicitors Indemnity Fund stops in September, which will help their businesses to survive.-- INDEPENDENCEName: Sabina Bowler-ReedAge: 49Specialism: Family and child careStaff: One administrative and secretarial supportBackground: Completed articles at City firm Richards Butler in 1977 where she stayed until 1981.

Married in 1981 and moved to New York with her husband to work as in-house counsel for a firm of shipping insurance brokers.

In 1982, she left work to start a family.

In 1983, she returned to the UK and spent two years working as a legal adviser at Centreprise, a community centre in Hackney.

In 1986, she moved to Bristol and retrained as a family lawyer with Watson Cox & Counsell.

After a year at another firm, she left to set up an all female co-operative, Kate Berry & Co, in 1989 where she remained until 1991 when she set up her own practice.

Why did you become a sole practitioner?'I think I was drawn to becoming a sole practitioner because I'm quite an independent person and I like to be in control of my work-load and the way I work.

I would only go back to a partnership structure with the right people.

Finding those right people is never easy.'Do you enjoy being a sole practitioner?'Nearly 80% of my work now is publicly funded work in family and child care law.

Although I was a ble to obtain a franchise for family work under Community Legal Service (CLS) contracting, I did not apply for one in mental health work because I could not have dealt with the administrative requirements of two franchise categories as a sole practitioner.'What do you think the future will be for sole practitioners? 'The recent civil contracting hasn't stopped me from practising as a solicitor but the administrative requirements have burdened and overwhelmed me.

It is a big struggle to keep doing the kind of law that I am experienced in, that I enjoy doing and that I want to do.

I feel that all my dedication and experience in social welfare law have been put under threat by the additional demands of the new CLS contracting.

I thought that the government's refusal to increase pay rates for publicly funded work was undermining and undervaluing.

If I had failed to get a family franchise then I would have stopped being a solicitor because I want to do this kind of work.

I find it insulting and puzzling that solicitors are paid such a low rate when doing socially important work where the welfare of children and other vulnerable groups is at stake.'-- FREEDOM CAN BE HARD TO COPE WITHName: Graham DobsonAge: 50Specialism: CrimeStaff: Nine solicitors, 12 other fee-earners, one trainee, support staff and a three-strong billing team.Background: Left school at 15 and worked for a Fleet Street newspaper and as a clerk at the Electricity Board before returning to technical college at 19 and then studying law at Sheffield University.

Articled at Sears Blok in London between 1975 and 1977, when he left to join Good & Good in Greenwich.

In 1988, he set up as a sole practitioner, which he describes as 'nothing less than a frightening experience'.Why did you become a sole practitioner? 'I was not happy being in a partnership and I always wanted to be the person at the cutting edge.

There was never really any doubt that it was the right thing to do; the only doubt was whether I could make it work.

I thought I would be twiddling my thumbs for the first six months as a sole practitioner, but within three months I had to take on additional staff.

By the end of my first year, I had realised that it was a golden opportunity and in many ways it has remained so.

I have always been very strong on management and paperwork and in fostering good relationships with clients.

Although I didn't see it at the time, the risk was not as great as I perceived it because of my personal characteristics.'Do you enjoy being a sole practitioner?'There is a freedom about it that perhaps many would find hard to cope with.

There is a lot of protection in being a sole practitioner with a large team.

If I don't come in, there is always someone to open up, answer the phones and to cover for me.

I personally like the challenge of employing people and taking the burden and benefit of that.' What do you think the future will be for sole practitioners? 'I don't think the future holds any real concerns for us.

In fact, I think we have an advantage because we determine our own business strategy and success.

We don't have to go to a committee for decisions.

Sole practitioners can make decisions on the spot and change our businesses to adapt to any changes that are forced on us which perhaps makes us even more flexible than even small firms.

That flexibility will make us forge into the future in a way larger firms don't understand or appreciate at all.

As regards technology, I am somewhat dismayed at the slowness of other practices in adopting IT.

Very few firms ar e advanced in their use of IT which would give them a greater management grasp over what they are doing.

Firms will get to it but are slow in doing so.'-- PROVIDING A PERSONAL SERVICEName: David PriceAge: 36Specialism: Solicitor-advocate specialising in defamation and contentious media-related lawStaff: Two solicitors, a barrister, two paralegals and support staff.Background: Trained with City firm Theodore Goddard between 1988 and 1990.

Practised as a barrister for six months.

Between 1991 and 1993, worked as a freelance libel lawyer for national newspapers, including The Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Mirror.

Set up his own firm in 1993 when he reached the Law Society's minimum requirement of three years' qualification.Why did you become a sole practitioner? 'From fairly early on I had an idea of what sort of practice I wanted, what kind of service I wanted to offer clients and the kind of work and lifestyle I wanted.

As a lawyer, I wanted to concentrate on being a solicitor-advocate.

If I'd stayed in a firm, I think there would have been pressure to send work to counsel because it is not seen as cost effective for solicitors to do it.

It may be cheaper at the start to instruct counsel, but every time you appear, it becomes easier and quite quickly you spend no more time on matters than they do, which then cuts out the cost of double-manning on cases.

I also believe that clients want to deal with the same lawyer throughout their case.

My "brand" is that clients get me from start to finish and I do the advocacy.

I also wanted the opportunity of working with an eclectic mix of clients; if I choose to work with a notorious client then there are no partners to upset and it can't dent the image of the firm.'Will you stay as a sole principal? 'If solicitors were allowed to arrange their businesses as they wanted, I would have a corporate structure and I would have divested myself of some of the shareholding by now.

As it is, I doubt I will be a sole principle in five or ten years' time because other partners will have been made up.'What do you think the future holds for sole practitioners? 'I think the future is bright and rosy because this is a people business.

Even in larger firms, clients go there because of their relationship with a particular person.

Clients want to build up a relationship of trust with their lawyers.

No matter how much IT and e-mail is used, sole practitioners will survive because clients feel they are getting a personal service from someone who cares about the success of their own business as well as the client's case.'-- DOING THE WORK YOU WANT TO DOName: Nick TrainerAge: 38Specialism: Acts exclusively for footballers and their agents.

Has specialist knowledge of football contracts and pay, but work is general although much involves contract disputes, defamation and endorsement contracts for players.

Famous clients include former England manager Terry Venables, Dennis Wise and John Scales.Staff: None.Background: Completed articles at London firm Seifert Sedley Williams between 1986 and 1988, when he left to pursue a career in athletics.

He returned to law in 1992 due to injury and set up in partnership with former colleague, John Bowden.

He became a sole practitioner in 1998 when his partner retired.Why do you practice as a sole practitioner? 'When I came back into the law in 1992, I wasn't intending to develop a niche practice.

I just wanted to work with the kind of people I knew in an area which I understood, which was sport.

I didn't really think I wanted to work by myself, it just happened that way and it worked out for the best.

I think it is good to have people around but it is also a good thing not to have to look over your shoulder all the time.

I like the fact that I don't have to account to any partners.

I do the work I want to.

If I want to work for nothing then that's fine; if I want to write off part of a bill or spend days out of the office doing non-fee earner work, then that's also fine.

The best thing is that I don't have to look after other people's files when they are on holiday and that is something I really used to hate.'Do you think you will stay as a sole practitioner? 'Although I have been lucky and have not had a hard time, I can see that it would be easy to crash out of being a sole practitioner if I lost a few clients.

I think it's easier if you have a niche practice because then clients are happy to come to you and are prepared to pay you for the work you do.

If you were on the high street doing legal aid work, I think it would be much harder.

It's difficult for sole practitioners because if clients have money, they tend to graduate to larger firms.'