Some solicitors enter the profession because it is a vocation, others because lawyering offers a comfortable living and a measure of status. We would venture that only a small minority become solicitors primarily because they aspire to be business people or entrepreneurs. After all, you study accountancy if you want to be on first-name terms with a balance sheet.

This reality has, however, been brought into uncomfortable focus by the downturn. Our snapshot of the credit crunch as it affects small practitioners in particular (see feature) contains the alarming forecast that up to 3,000 firms could disappear over the next few years as practices fall victim to declining workflows and unprecedented consolidation.

For these reasons, the exhortation to remember that ‘cash is king’ bears repetition here. Look at receiving money up-front, get better at interim billing, tighten up on credit control – these are all critical messages. As Tony Williams sagely observes: ‘Work in progress and debtors are not cash in the bank.’ If Gazette readers were to digest just one message from the sum of our editorial output this year, perhaps this ought to be the one.