Henry Hodge calls his manifesto 'A programme for change'.

Eileen Pembridge calls hers 'Standing up for the profession', and promises to 'turn fear to challenge'.These are stirring words but they would be more convincing if they came from people who were not so closely identified with Chancery Lane's record.When Robert Sayer and I began our campaign, we knew that we would be branded as mere mavericks, iconoclasts with no constructive ideas of our own.

We were at pains, therefore, to produce a reasoned manifesto and separate papers examining the main problems confronting the profession.The result is that we now find ourselves in the surprising position of the contenders with a coherent and constructive programme.

It is the establishment candidates who stand on the touchline shouting 'Yah boo'.I believe the electorate will ask itself two specific questions.

first, which of the candidates has successfully identified our problems? Secondly, which of them is most likely to provide solutions?The background to these elections, of course, is the decline in the profession's prosperity and sense of security.

Ten years ago, ours was the safest of occupations, with a guaranteed good income for life.

Those days are gone.

Continually I receive letters from ordinary practitioners telling me how they cannot wait to retire, and how they would not dream of advising their own children to become solicitors.

What, then, are the issues?-- Sheer numbers.

Every year, the profession increases in size by 3000 solicitors.

It has trebled in size during the last 30 years.

We are oversupplied with solicitors.

As night follows day, oversupply means a fall in the prices we can demand, cut throat competition, redundancies and reduced incomes for all of us.

What has been the response of the Law Society to this problem? It is hardly believable but this year it has actually increased the number of authorised training places.

The President is content to leave the matter to 'market forces'.

Chancery Lane must be one of the few remaining bastions of Thatcherism!In the 1980s, it may be remembered, 'market forces' resulted in the decimation of British manufacturing industry.

'Market forces' will do the same for us if we choose to do nothing.What does Mr Hodge say about the matter in his manifesto? What does Ms Pembridge say? Nothing is the short answer.

Nothing.-- Professional indemnity insurance.

For every firm, this is now a major overhead.

When I was first in practice, my indemnity premium was less than £100 per annum.

Also, insurance was not compulsory.

Most firms were covered but some were not.

Now, a client is entitled to sue his solicitor for negligence but he has no God given right to insist that his solicitor carries insurance.

What actually is wrong with a scheme under which the Law Society arranges insurance for conveyancing transactions and says to the client, 'We the Law Society guarantee this transaction and in return you will pay a small fee, £25 or £50'.

Is this such an absurd idea that its feasibility should not even be considered?Mr Hodge has called it 'naive'.

But if you ask him what ideas he has for making a useful reduction in the cost o f professional indemnity insurance, he has nothing to offer.

Neither has Ms Pembridge.

We have produced a detailed paper with reasoned proposals.If our scheme is bad, let Chancery Lane come up with a better one.-- The Solicitors Complaints Bureau.

This costs over a quarter of the total income from our practising certificates.

But the bureau pleases no one, neither the public nor the profession.

The National Consumer Council recently issued a report which proposed that the bureau be wound up and replaced by a new statutory body with greatly increased powers.

Its cost would be many times the present £11 million we have to find.

Who would pay for it? The profession, of course.The bureau needs reforming.

In what respects? At the moment, it acts as a beacon for vexatious complainants.

Complaints procedures should be brought back within the Law Society.

There would be an entirely independent appeals procedure.

No complainant could then say that he had not been dealt with fairly and impartially.

At the same time, the Law Society should appoint a visitor to go through the bureau's files at random and report annually to it.

At the moment, no one actually knows whether the bureau's complaints handling is good or bad.Once again, we have produced a detailed paper setting out our proposals.

Once again, the proposals are dismissed out of hand.-- Bureaucracy, waste and extravagance.

Chancery Lane's record here is now an oft told tale.

The bureaucracy has trebled in size in ten years and its expenditure has increased sevenfold during the same period.

But perhaps a lesson has been learnt?Not at all! The Law Society's strategy plan envisages the opening of a new regional office every year and there are plans to spend over £10 million on works to the headquarters.Mr Hodge supports the proposal to open more regional offices.

Ms Pembridge does not talk of actually saving money, merely of reallocating it.It is the simple fact that Mr Hodge is the Council's candidate and he is stuck with the Council's record.

If he is elected, it will be business as usual.Ms Pembridge tells us that the profession 'deserves someone who is not a creature of Chancery Lane'.

The 'creature' is presumably Mr Hodge.

But was it not only last month that Ms Pembridge was (albeit unsuccessfully) seeking the Council's endorsement for the vice-presidency as Mr Hodge's running mate?The profession has a clear choice before it: it can vote for the continuance of the old regime, or it can vote for change.

Mr Hodge and Ms Pembridge may be excellent people.

But reformists they are not.