Demoralised lawyers are 'seeking therapy'

The legal profession seems to have discovered its true place in the nation's affections - somewhere below traffic wardens and above tax collectors - as The Independent this week (25 June) reported how solicitors from top City firms are to receive 'special counselling' to restore their 'battered self esteem'.

The recent, and much discussed, lawyer bashing in certain sections of the media has 'dented their morale' and 'left many without the will to work'.

Lawyers, obviously more sensitive creatures than their image suggests, have been 'deeply affected by the "fat cat" label', and many are even 'lying at dinner parties about what they do'.

City solicitors will have to soften their stiff upper lip and indulge in some quality moment sharing time, as the group therapy sessions - run by a former head of practice management at the Law Society - are designed to 'help solicitors rediscover their love of the law'.

'Wigs may get the chop,' declared The Times this week (26 June), based on reports that the Lord Chief Justice - provoked by criticism from enraged solicitor advocate Brian Kennedy - is to examine the hairy issue.

The paper reported how Mr Kennedy, of London firm Kaim Todner, fumed that wigs created the impression that defending solicitor advocates are 'second rate outsiders'.'With a wholesale review of criminal justice at the top of the agenda of the new government, wigs, like Latin tags, may soon be consigned to legal history,' the Times predicted.An unfortunate story for the profession came in the form of Michael Fielding, a former partner at City firm Lawrence Graham, who was this week understood to have removed 2 million from the client account of London & Regional, a property group he advised earlier this year before his unexpected departure to the US (Independent on Sunday, 24 June).

Mr Fielding is understood to be abroad 'following medical advice about his mental health', and - perhaps understandably - 'does not plan to return until he feels able to deal with the financial carnage that he has left behind him'.Another City firm in the news this week was Clifford Chance, which has been running a series of seminars 'designed to find out why so few of its female solicitors become partners' (The Times 19 June).

Of its 670 partners, only 95 are female, but the firm 'has not been sitting on its hands - they realise the problem is not going to go away, and are trying to come up with solutions'.

Mooted ideas include the old chestnuts of flexible or part-time working - but as Lesley MacDonagh, managing partner of City firm Lovells, admits: 'There is no getting away from the commercial environment in which City lawyers work, and we have to respond to the demands of our clients'.

Slightly more cheering news for female lawyers came in the form of two key government legal jobs falling to high-profile women - Harriet Harman was this week appointed as the first female Solicitor-General and Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC has become the first woman lawyer to be made a minister of state in the Lord Chancellor's Department.

In a double profile, The Guardian (19 June) described Ms Harman as something of a firebrand: 'not quite the David Shayler of the early 1980s, but 20 years ago she was found guilty of contempt of court for disclosing Home Office documents to a newspaper reporter.' Although generally positive about both appointments, Baroness Scotland's roots in the Labour party were described as 'not particularly deep', with one allegedly 'long time friend' on hearing the news of her appointment, commenting 'I thought she was a Tory'.

Victoria MacCallum