One morning during the holiday I popped into the office when the building was well and truly closed. The telephone was ringing and I answered it to give a mouthful to the caller about lawyers needing holidays as well, but it was only a person wishing the firm a happy new year.

Later I was using the photocopier when a message came up ‘beware low memory’. I hope it was not a comment on me but just a routine technical breakdown.

New year is a time for predictions and resolutions. So here are some of the former:

  • There will be yet more people wanting to join the profession.
  • There will be fewer jobs for anyone.
  • The bite-size reputation of the profession will be more firmly established as: rich, overpaid people doing little.
  • The gulf between the successful commercial world and high street will widen.
  • Legal aid will only be for specialists.
  • Clients will gradually learn to expect to pay.
  • That not-for-profit sector and big investors will lose any interest they had in doing high street legal work.
  • Unsolicited claims calls, texts, emails will be banned.
  • The profession will rediscover that it is a profession.

If any of those ring true, what are we as a profession doing about it?

David Pickup is a partner in Aylesbury-based Pickup & Scott