Mortgage lenders have failed to appreciate the embarrassment caused to sole practitioners (SPs) resulting from their unjust and unwarranted decisions to remove conveyancing SPs from their panels.

The reasons given, such as SP firms not completing enough new business with them in the previous 12 months, are inadequate and irrelevant, especially in the current economic climate. Affected SPs have to explain to clients why they can no longer act for them and are experiencing a further dent in their cashflow. In consequence, clients suffer by having to pay twice as much as they would normally.

The Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) will continue to campaign for the reinstatement of affected SPs to mortgage lenders’ panels. Following the attendance of some key speakers at our May conference, we are opening a dialogue with the Building Societies Association on the issue.

Professional indemnity insurance (PII) continues to dominate the SPG agenda. With the renewal date fast approaching, the SPG is doing everything possible to help members, while not overlooking the key problem facing SPs establishing themselves of obtaining initial PII at reasonable cost.

We are also conscious of the plight of SPs offering legal aid assistance. While only a small proportion of sole practitioners continue to provide legal aid, those that do are facing unprecedented challenges.

At the time of writing, we are waiting to see whether SPs will even be able to continue to provide their services to legally aided clients beyond 30 September 2010, when the current contracts expire. SPs who wish to do so are waiting in trepidation for the outcome of the recent bidding process (a process in which most SPs will feel that the odds were stacked against them) and to hear whether they have been awarded a unified contract from 1 October.

For most of those SPs, legal aid work accounts for the largest proportion of fee income, so the loss of the Legal Services Commission contract could mean the closure of the firm. To add insult to injury, their plight has been worsened by the LSC’s recent delays in making payments, forcing small firms to pay the price for government budgetary crises elsewhere.

Cashflow is keyWe are very grateful to the Law Society, which has taken up this issue on behalf of all legal aid practices. Cashflow is the key to survival of any business, large or small. For SPs who do not have other private income streams, it is literally the difference between the survival or demise of the practice.

The anxiety caused by payment delays, added to the daily pressures of legal aid practice, creates an untenable situation for SPs and constitutes further proof of their ability to remain stalwart, trustworthy and reliable in the toughest of market conditions. The SPG will continue to campaign on behalf of these unsung heroes of the profession who represent their legal aid clients with commitment and passion, often at great personal and financial expense.

SPs are also faced with the huge challenge of alternative business structures, which will herald a very different legal services market. However, it is perhaps the case that SPs are better equipped to react and adapt swiftly to these challenges than some medium-sized firms hampered by more cumbersome management structures.

Finally there is the burden of regulation and keeping up with its ever-changing manifestations. I am not sure whether we should welcome the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposals for ‘outcomes-focused regulation’. At present, we hardly have enough time to get on with looking after our clients as we would wish.

Protecting the public interest is one thing, but we seem to be subject to too much governance, while unregulated will-writers and their ilk can get away with leading the public astray (and often without the protection of insurance).

Lawumi Biriyok, principal at London firm Biriyok Show, is chair of the Sole Practitioners Group