Somehow my office managed to pass its pre-contract audit with no non-compliances, major or minor.

As one of the largest firms in south London still committed to doing legal aid work, we are one of the relatively few practices (approximately 170) which have applied for a franchise in the London area.We decided there was no alternative but to apply for a franchise.

Since we already had an office manual, we thought it would be relatively easy to adapt the procedures to comply with the franchising specification.

We had decided to apply for an investors in people certificate and obtain money from our local training and enterprise council to pay for half the cost of a management consultancy study.

Franchising was only one part of a drive to ensure higher quality advice was given to all clients and to consider the strategy of the firm overall.Despite the help we received and the systems we had in place, a huge amount of partners' time was spent preparing.

One partner was responsible for the office manual and training and I was in charge of franchising generally and ensuring that the other partners and staff followed the procedures.There has been a significant drop in chargeable hours for the two partners concerned over the past financial year but the firm is now more organised, better managed and has proper procedures to follow.

In particular, the system of monthly file reviews has been developed and improved.There may be variation up and down the country as to the quality of liaison managers.

My firm was fortunate in having one who was realistic, flexible and who used to run a citizens advice bureau.Despite the length of the franchising specification and transaction criteria, there is still a need to exercise discretion in the interpretation of both.

Discretion is also needed in dealing with the Legal Aid Board's monitoring statistics.

For example, if a legal aid application is refused on the grounds of legal merit a nd, on appeal, a certificate is granted, there is no provision for that refusal to be corrected automatically on the board's computer.

To avoid that overturned refusal affecting the firm's percentage compliance rate indefinitely, a manual correction is required.Both, the preliminary audit and pre-contract audit provided tremendous incentives to get up to date with work, to sort out old files, and to tidy the office generally.I was very nervous about the preliminary audit, but I hoped our effective use of technology would see us through.

Each fee-earner and secretary has a work station on his or her desk with access to the office manual on the networked word-processing and accounts system.

With data light pens and fully computerised time recording, the work in progress on any matter can be accessed by all fee-earners from their work stations.We then introduced a purchase ledger system on which were entered counsels' fees and unpaid disbursements to give us a better idea as to whether the costs condition on non-family civil certificates may be broken.

It also helped by giving more accurate and readily assessable costs estimates every six months.

Our liaison manager was impressed by the technology.I still have grave reservations as to the ability of the transaction criteria to measure quality of advice as opposed to the ability to carry out set routines.

Nonetheless, the results of the audit using the transaction criteria were interesting.The audit also revealed that, in some family cases, advice was not being given as to the effect of remarriage on wills, which resulted in precedent letters being changed.What did concern us was that when the results of the transaction criteria audit were analysed, the auditors had misunderstood several files.

For example, non-compliances were entered because, in a case in which an agreement was reached and a consent order made before proceedings were commenced for ancillary relief, we were supposed to have advised our client as to what the final hearing would entail, the distress of going to court and the possible outcomes of the hearing.It is right for clients to be informed every six months as to the costs incurred in their cases.

I can see why this should apply even in cases where the statutory charge is not involved, so that clients are aware of costs.

However, when we sent out the first wave of six-months' costs letters, which we decided to send out on 2 January and 1 July every year, we had to make the letter very clear to ensure that clients did not think that either we or the board required immediate payment of those costs.Turning to profitability, the financial incentives have now been significantly reduced with the proposals to introduce standard fees in civil cases.

If civil cases are to be paid according to each stage in the litigation, then the benefit of receiving 75% of all profit costs incurred nine months after the issue of a full legal aid certificate will be much less.Although the Lord Chancellor has stated on record that he wants franchised firms to have preferential terms of payment, I am doubtful that this will happen.

My fear is that once a sufficiently large number of firms are financially dependent on having a franchise, the Lord Chancellor will then reduce the rates of remuneration even further and, in five years' time, introduce some form of compulsory competitive tendering or block contracting.Franchised firms will then have to bid against each other for what little work remains after the inevitable further eligibility cuts and changes in the law reducing the role of solicitors.In any event, such financial incentives as there are only help cash flow, not profitability.

The rates of remuneration are becoming more and more of a problem with continuing freezes and the reduction in hourly rates paid in cases where costs orders are not obtained.Franchising should lead to an improved service to our clients.

If it has made us more aware of the need for quality, then, to that extent alone, franchising has had a positive effect.

However, it will be possible for firms to obtain a franchise using precedent letters and computer packages and employing unqualified staff who are able to tick boxes and send standard letters but not give high quality advice.Franchising was supposed to reduce bureaucracy in dealing with the board.

I suspect this will not happen, since forms will have to be completed when emergency certificates are granted or green form extensions allowed.I fear that the increased amount of bureaucracy, form filling and box ticking, even for assistant solicitors, will lead to more members of the profession giving up legal aid.

The increasing controls on which the board is insisting place a heavy burden on solicitors' working practices.

Many of those who deal with a high volume of legal aid work may find the bureaucracy too much.On the civil legal aid check list, for example, it states that legal aid application forms must be submitted within three months of the date on which the forms are signed.

We had a case when, because of delays by the client, the financial application form was submitted more than two months after the date it was signed, but less than three months.This form was rejected by the London area office on the grounds that financial application forms can only be accepted up to two months after they were signed.

How were we to know of this additional requirement? This rejected legal aid application has been entered on our monitoring, even though we were successfully able to appeal against the rejection after further correspondence, no doubt unpaid, with the board.Franchising must have a marketing advantage for gaining new clients.

Advice agencies and law centres are bound to prefer to send clients to firms with a franchise rather than to send them to firms without one.

However, in south London, my firm finds there is a seemingly unlimited stream of family and housing work, no doubt because of the diminishing numbers of solicitors willing to do legal aid work for inadequate rates of pay.Franchising is now a reality which we have to accept.

Only time will tell whether those firms which have decided to apply for a franchise will benefit from the exercise.