When the Legal Aid Board offered franchise contracts to practitioners in August 1994, solicitors who depended on this source of income were given their first opportunity to jump on what seemed to be a bandwagon to the future.Since the, two pay rises for legally aided work which penalised non-franchised firms have underlined the Lord Chancellor's Department's intention to encourage this reaction.

The latest increase, agreed last week, gave franchised firms 1.5% more than their non-fran chised counterparts across the board, raised up-front cash pay-outs and expedited payments on account.Initial fears that franchises would only be awarded to larger firms have not been borne out; several sole practitioners were among the first to sign up for franchising.

Of the 1140 offices franchised by the end of 1995, about 30 were sole practitioners -- either operating alone or with one or more assistant solicitors.

More applied for contracts covering only one or two areas of work.

Franchises were widely viewed as likely to afford some protection from the legal aid upheavals that were correctly anticipated to be just over the horizon.'I had the same motive as many others who applied for a franchise,' said Tony Paterson, a sole practitioner in Barnes, west London, who has a franchise for immigration work.

'We were just scared that in due course non-franchisees would not be allowed to do legal aid any more.' Stephen Walker, a Plymouth criminal specialist solicitor, concurred: 'I thought that I didn't apply, in a comparatively short time I'd be out of business.'Most sole practitioners agreed that winning a franchise was a time-consuming, sometimes difficult and expensive task, although many praised the LAB's liaison officials for their helpfulness and patience.

Firms which apply must undergo an audit of their management practices and satisfy the board's transaction criteria.

Most controversially, an office manual must be prepared, setting out in cold print the firm's working practices.

This falls hardest on those who have previously worked to their own informal, perhaps idiosyncratic, methods.Some clearly resented the work involved in the franchise process.

'It was terribly costly in terms of my time and energy,' said one home counties sole practitioner.

'I am the sole earner, so anything that distracts me is obviously very expensive.' She added that the transaction criteria involved much unnecessary administration: 'You have to give a huge amount of information to clients.

Most of it is completely irrelevant to them.'Other franchised solos felt that the difficulty had been much exaggerated.

Since small firms were more flexible, with less re-organisation to be done, they had a distinct advantage over larger firms.

According to the LAB, this should indeed be the case.

Chief executive Steve Orchard said: 'The smaller the practice, the easier it is to meet the franchise criteria.

Issues such as management, appraisals and supervision are far more straightforward.'Some sole practitioners maintained that the working practices required by the board have had little effect on their efficiency, since their methods were already sufficiently advanced.

Several, however, conceded that day-to-day improvements have been a positive spin-off from the franchise process.

'The bottom line is that we hated the idea at first, but we did it and it's got a lot of advantages for efficiency,' said Linda Stapleton, a matrimonial sole practitioner in Gloucester.Beyond the headline attractions of higher pay rates and faster payments, several other fringe benefits have emerged: a better relationship with the LAB; a feeling of greater security and self-confidence; an expectation of favourable treatment in the future; more freedom in having devolved powers conferred by the franchise; and improved communication between staff members.But, on the issue of quality, few sole practitioners had much sympathy with the LAB's avowed aim that the franchise initiative would provide 'an accessible and quality assured legal aid service'.

There is no direct correlat ion between a franchise and a quality service, said one.

Quality in legal services simply cannot be assessed, argued several others.'It provides extra safeguards for clients, but it is debateable whether the quality of law is better,' said Liz Ord, sole principal of a fast-growing Liverpool practice which currently has franchises in housing and personal injury.

Most scathing was an experienced Yorkshire sole practitioner: 'They advertise it as a quality service and it isn't,' he said.

'It's just the ability to satisfy a lot of criteria which do not reflect one's expertise.'Christopher Mew, a sole practitioner in Spalding, Lincolnshire, was more philosophical.

The act of applying for a franchise reflected a firm's 'progressive' outlook.

'If that is true, it probably also follows that they are quality firms,' he said.Of great concern to sole practitioners, as with other legal aid solicitors, are the block contract proposals contained within last year's green paper, 'Legal aid: targeting need'.

A deep-seated fear is that if competitive tendering for contracts is specified in future legislation, only practitioners with a niche practice in an area where their expertise is in demand will prosper under the new system.The fear of block contracts marginalising franchisees has put practitioners off applying, said Avon-based David O'Hagan, chairman of the Sole Practitioners Group: 'People are thinking: "Why go to all the bother when you might be left out in the cold in the same way that non-franchisees are being left in the cold now?"'According to the government, 'franchising will provide a framework for setting and monitoring the quality standards within block contracts'.

This is the kind of confirmation that reassures sole practitioner franchise holders that it was worth the trouble of qualifying.

Whether their efforts will pay off in the long term may become clearer when the white paper, expected this summer, is published.