'Gross fees doubled over five years'; 'in the last year the number of payments up by 9%'; 'a rise of 13% in value of payments in the same year'.

These were not the headlines generated by the recently published 1994 Trends in the Solicitors' Profession statistical report issued by the Law Society's research and policy planning unit.

They come from the government and they relate to legal aid.

The report faithfully records them.The growth last year was mainly in the civil field and the report comes too early to reflect the effects of the Lord Chancellor's actions to curb this growth by reducing hourly rates in many instances by as much as 30%.It should be a matter of pride for the profession and the public alike that the legal aid scheme served 3.4 million people in 1993/94.

On 761,000 occasions, solicitors provided assistance under the police station 24-hour duty scheme, at an average cost of £88.

The dedication and willingness of the profession to perform this unsociable occup ation at rates which would keep most plumbers in their beds deserves wider recognition.While the profession holds its breath for a paean of praise from the Lord Chancellor for this public service it would also do well to study table 7.8 in the report which deals with the distribution of payments to solicitors' offices.In 1993/94 11,271 offices received some payment from the legal aid fund.

Less than 4000 offices received more than £60,000.

Just over 2100 received more than £120,000.

Some 7500 offices therefore received from the legal aid fund less than the average gross fees generated by each fee-earner in firms with two to four partners.

3500 offices received less than £10,000 from the fund.It will be interesting to observe the impact of franchising on this pattern.

It seems reasonable to assume that the firms with the greatest income from legal aid will have been most enthusiastic or felt most compelled towards this route.

A government planner might well see the much smaller sums now distributed across the bulk of firms doing legal aid as offering rich pickings to fund a smaller number of publicly funded salaried legal service outlets.

Alternatively, the temptation could be to re-distribute some of these resources through the existing advice agency network.With talk of cash limits on legal aid so much in the news, the annual statistical report contains information that would question the political wisdom of pursuing such a policy.

The growth in legal aid expenditure has been slowed and the annual embarrassment of the permanent secretary in explaining overspending over which he has had no control, seems to have ended with two consecutive years of undershoot and a third on the way.Legislation in both Houses could be fraught.

Even politicians not naturally sympathetic to lawyers or the virtues of legal aid will not welcome the prospect of daily hard luck stories from their constituents denied legal support because the money had apparently run out.

Further control of unit costs and a tighter definition of the scope of legal aid may in the medium term prove more attractive for the present and even an incoming administration.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget statement said that 4.4 million people will receive legal aid by 1997/98.The number of traineeships registered is equally a very useful barometer of the health of the profession.

The latest figures suggest that numbers are approaching the peak years, although the most recent figures show a slowing down in October and in November compared to the previous year.

Private practice firms usually only take on trainees if, first, they feel they can afford them and, secondly, if they believe that they will be able to capitalise on their investment by employing the vast majority on qualification as solicitors.

The largest percentage increase in trainees was in the north, which is mirrored by a similar trend in their gross fees, but the south east has shown a marked increase while its income outside Greater London has declined.

It is to be fervently hoped that this optimism is well placed.The south east sees the largest number of interventions by the Solicitors Complaints Bureau, consistently year by year.

There is no national figure of the numbers of voluntary arrangements entered into by solicitors but, according to figures not recorded in the annual statistical report, the number of bankruptcies of solicitors notified to the Society so far this year is 39 compared to 68 in the previous year.

Faster payment of practising certificate fees and indemnity fund contribution s with fewer non renewals and defaults this year are also healthy signs.No figures are currently available to the Society dealing with profitability although we do have figures about gross fees and overheads.

However, the Society is conducting its first six monthly survey of 500 firms, which includes questions about the relative profitability of different types of work.

From that we will be able to assess the 'feel good factor'.

Personally I am under no illusions.

It is some consolation therefore that the practising certificate fee costs less, at 0.36%, as a proportion of the profession's gross fees per solicitor than it did in 1987.