The European Union - shortly to be enlarged with ten new member states - is now the home market for solicitors.

Our firms, especially those from London, are market leaders, particularly in the heavy commercial and transactional end of the market.

The Establishment Directive has enshrined our rights to practise anywhere in the EU.

It would be in solicitors' interests to have a more harmonised EU legal practice regime, provided it was not inimical to our interests.

Your article on the draft EU Framework Services Directive was therefore unnecessarily parochial and negative (see [2004] Gazette, 22 January, 1).

If a single code of conduct is being projected, solicitors should be seeking to direct such work.

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE) is the only independent forum in which this could be done.

It is true that the CCBE is a rather flawed model.

It is only a representative body with no regulatory mandate.

It frequently marginalises itself, as in the current self-destructive war it is waging with the European Commission over competition issues or in its protectionist attempts to deny in-house lawyers full privileges at law.

The public interest rarely features in its debates.

Nevertheless, for English solicitors practising in Europe, the way to address these issues is to engage with the CCBE and not to ignore it.

If the Law Society adopts a stand-offish approach, this would be misguided and would only serve to isolate it further from London firms practising in Europe.

Robin Healey, Law Society Council member for international practice, London