As the deadline for publication of Sir David Clementi's review of the legal services market draws ever closer, is the bar losing its nerve? Or at least its sense of perspective? In his latest chairman's report - catchily headlined 'Ave atque vale' (those crazy barrister-types) - bar chief Stephen Irwin QC rails against 'what is crudely called Tescolaw', the outside ownership of legal practice. 'The risks are not merely that criminals or terrorists could gain control of a legal practice - a powerful tool for crime or terror,' he writes. Moving swiftly on from the notion that Al-Qaeda Carlos the Jackal & Co might somehow escape the regulatory net, he sniffs that 'outside commercial ownership will turn the profession of law into a business, primarily geared to profit, using professional skills, but with a much diminished professional culture'. Business people, Mr Irwin adds, 'put profit at the centre of their activities'. God forbid. Happily, a cursory look around the car-parks of the Inns of Court, chock-full as they are with value-for-money Ladas and Skodas, of course backs up the suggestion that barristers are never in it for the money, as does the practice rule - the number escapes us for now - requiring barristers to content themselves with earning £35,000 per year and giving the rest to charity.