On any weekday, in reception areas from the high street to Herbert Smith, clients are giving their name, then waiting to see their solicitor. Depending on the firm, they might wait looking at a Howard Hodgkin poster in a clip frame, or wait looking at the genuine article – whatever group they fall into, unless they are in a police cell, this formula is the same.Perhaps more lawyers should get closer to their clients by going to them more often. Of course, some do get out sometimes. But it’s striking sitting by the entrance to an accountancy practice, just how many practitioners are returning from places, often with heavy bags. ‘You never come to us,’ was the comment of one client recently relayed to me by the managing partner of a 30 fee-earner practice.

Larger commercial firms do send some secondees to key clients. But even here, clients complain that there is a ‘you come to us’ attitude from their advisers. As one general counsel in financial services tells me. ‘We’ve said to several advisers, "we have spare desks – why don’t you get some of your lawyers to sit in our offices to do their work? You’d get to know us, and our culture, so much better". But they don’t take the chance,’ she laments.

At law firms of all sizes, there is some envy that for commercial work, accountants are seen far more than lawyers as general business advisers. Accountants’ physical closeness to clients on a day-to-day basis, a product of the audit function, is one of the factors that makes them better at appropriate cross-selling of services.

You can tell from the state of someone’s cookbooks whether they actually cook from them. Assuming issues around IT/data security can be sorted out, shouldn’t you be able to tell from the marks on a lawyer’s laptop, or the state of their suit, whether they advise a baker or a builder, a farmer or an oil firm?