This is a new session for a new conference.

Presidents and secretaries have had their chance at separate conferences over the years to question Law Society office holders and committee chairmen or management board members.

They will be able to put over their law society or group's views on this occasion but so too will any conference delegate.We will have the benefit of modern electronic voting aids which will enable Charles Elly to gauge audience reaction in a fairly sophisticated way.

Not too much like a game show, I hope, but definitely a two-way process.

So although the agenda should be driven by the audience, I do hope that we can learn from each other.

For example, what ideas have worked best in involving more people in the work of their local law society? Which society is prepared to do more to resolve complaints locally? Why are there more complaints by solicitors about solicitors? In which areas would you like the Law Society to do more? Where do you think they should do less?The other experimental point about this session is that it has replaced for the moment the annual conference for presidents and secretaries because that is what most societies wanted when we polled them some years ago.

We will need feedback after the conference about whether we should go on in this way.

The regional gatherings being planned this year have the same aim but go further, because they attempt to reach out to people who do not go to national conferences or even local law society meetings.

This session, therefore, marks an important beginning.John Hayes.This enigmatic title portends a host of possible meanings.

Is it a gauntlet? A call to account? By whom? Our members? The public? Or is it a stark invitation to grapple with concerns about our justice system? It is an apt title.These are not easy times.

After four years of recession lawyers are faced with an evermore discerning and demanding clientele and public.

Increased specialisation, higher standards and exacting working practices are expected in a competitive and cost conscious market.

Solicitors, like barristers, expect their professional body to look after and fight for their interests.On the public agenda, however, there are issues which are not going to go away: access to justice and the cost of going to law, legal aid expenditure, crime and the criminal justice system, gender and racial discrimination - to mention but a few.

Are we to be heard and taken seriously on these issues?Trade union or self-regulating professional and ethical body? There may be a dual role, but I have no doubt which should prevail.

We live in an accountable age.

Beneath mischievous newspaper headlines there is a belief that the public has a legitimate interest in our affairs.

They do.

If we want to resist crude cuts in legal aid, ill thought out cost-cutting procedural reforms, the surrender of huge areas of work to accountants and others, threats to our self-regulating and independent status (itself a vital element of a just society) we have to help to find solutions to the testing issues of the day with a willingness to meet public needs and expectations in the way we deliver our services.By applying our professional judgment to these issues from a public perspective rather than narrow professional self-interest, the Bar and the Law Society will fulfil our historic responsibilities.

This is our challenge.Robert Seabrook QC.