The Law Society should find better things to do than try to persuade the International Bar Association to adopt alternative business structures (news, 14 October). The Americans, to their credit, show every sign of sticking to their guns and maintaining a legal profession run by lawyers, a phrase that once upon a time would have been tautologous. No longer, I fear.

If law firms are going to be run with properly trained personnel inculcated with appropriate professional ethics – and the public need and deserve the protection of both the training and the ethics – they need to be owned and run by lawyers.

The Law Society should have adopted the admirable US approach. Remember how Tony Blair thought it would be a good idea to overturn the practice of centuries and have non-lawyer lord chancellors. Then look at the problems the profession has had with the current incumbent, who has shown time after time that he knows and cares nought about the practice of criminal law.

Lawyers need to retain control of the legal profession.

Ian Craine, London N15

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