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Well, I had a bet with my software developers that when Siaro was wheeled out into the light, it would get a quick trashing on the comments pages of The Gazette. I’ll collect my money tonight.

I only do one thing: family law. I hope after 20 years I do it well. I hope after 5 years of building Siaro and its platform, that it will make a modest contribution to keeping me and other family law solicitors firmly in the game despite the carpetbaggers and venture capitalists queuing up to take our place in a ‘market’ we used to have to ourselves. As it is, it appears to me that much of the debate around digital pathways and online courts too easily assumes that lawyers will be engineered out of those processes.

I freely confess to loving technology and the opportunities it offers to help us and our clients. I also freely confess to being very ‘traditional’ in other aspects of my thinking: I believe we have a ‘profession’ and that we assist ‘clients’ and not ‘consumers’.

Siaro is intended to allow those clients who need family law advice to more easily access the expertise we possess, in some abundance, in our profession. It is not simply an online questionnaire; it is very much more than that. I thank Joe Reevy for suspending judgement until he has had the opportunity to run the rule over it. And to Alex Cook for getting the point. All will be revealed at the Law Society conference on 17 March. I’m very happy to take a kicking, if anyone still thinks it is merited, after that point.