The payment of referral fees is an abomination which is destroying our profession. I am so pleased the Law Society’s Council has decided to call for their abolition.

The whole concept of buying in work destroys the traditional values upon which our profession is based, such as client loyalty, local reputation and respect in the community.

Many of the clients purchased will be living far from the solicitor’s office and will never meet the solicitor face to face at all. Indeed, it is arguable that they are not really ‘clients’ at all. The real client is the referrer and if an issue arises which raises a conflict of interest, how many firms will risk upsetting the referrer by standing up for the interests of the referred?

We will soon cease to be a profession at all. Legal services will simply become another commodity like electricity, gas or broadband, to be purchased online, over the phone or from the supermarket at the cheapest price, regardless of quality and supplied by faceless corporations with call centres.

Many firms are paying referral fees ‘because everyone else is’. That was the excuse so many banks gave for investing in sub-prime mortgages!

I urge every high-street firm to lobby their MP for rapid abolition before the damage to our profession is irreparable.

John Hawks, Beaty and Co, Wigton, Cumbria