The first tranche of firms has now been awarded Lexcel, the Law Society's award for good management practice.

However, those firms and consultants which have already had the Lexcel experience maintain that the scheme is at a crossroads.'I believe there's an opportunity to make it [Lexcel] the standard for the legal profession,' says Sean Newcombe of Nutec, the consultant who guided the first firm in the country, London-based Simpson Millar, through the Lexcel assessment process.

'But if the Law Society leaves it to market forces, then I think it will be one of three, along with ISO 9000 and IiP [Investors in People].'Investors in People, and ISO 9000 are the two other management standards which firms can work towards, and are therefore complementary to Lexcel.

Before Lexcel, the Law Society's practice management standards were not externally assessed, which meant that they were not as effective as a marketing tool.That impediment was solved by Lexcel, which is externally assessed, and it has several advantages over other quality marks as far as law firms are concerned.

As Angus Andrew, chairman of the Society's law management section's advisory committee and senior partner at a north London firm, points out: 'The advantage of Lexcel over ISO 9000 is that you can understand Lexcel.

When you actually read ISO standards they are incomprehensible to anyone who is not a quality consultant'.Mr Andrew's firm has earned ISO 9000, but despite the advantage that Lexcel is tailored for law firms, his firm will continue with the ISO standard.

Mr Andrew continues: 'I think Lexcel deserves to succeed, and if I was starting from scratch now, I would get Lexcel in preference to ISO 9000.

But, having got ISO 9000 and having got used to the system I wouldn't want to change.

A lot of things done by the Law Society often take longer than one would wish to come to fruition, so that now it [Lexcel] is on the back foot.'The fact that Lexcel has a significant amount of catching up to do is why people such as Mr Newcombe are urging the Society to be more vigorous in its approach to promoting the standard.

He comments: 'Just policing the quality of consultants and accreditation is passive.

You have to break through some years of being overtaken by other standards.

If it [the Law Society] doesn't, then I think the take up will be limited'.Later this year the Society's practice management executive, which administers the scheme, is planning a national advertising campaign to promote it.

Karen Harley, the manager at the department in charge of the scheme, says Lexcel took time to develop because the Law Society needed to be sure that all the various interested parties agreed it would be workable.Ms Harley says the Law Society would ultimately like to see every law firm with practice management standard (PMS) in place and achieving Lexcel, but but there is one significant obstacle.

Whereas there is funding available for ISO 9000 and IiP, which can mean up to 50% of a consultant's fees are paid for, there is none available for Lexcel.

However, Ms Harley comments: 'Because the two are so similar, if a practice is going for IiP, then funding which is being attracted by virtue of IiP is spilling over into Lexcel.

Solicitors are, in effect, seeing the benefit o f funding available from other schemes'.The practice management department is talking to the Legal Aid Board in an effort to persuade it to accept Lexcel as an alternative to the Legal Aid Franchise, and Ms Harley says some kind of compromise seems possible.

She says there are also discussions with the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) to see whether reduced indemnity fees could be charged to practices with Lexcel.The biggest firm so far to apply for and receive Lexcel, is Tunbridge Wells-based Cripps Harries Hall, which has 27 partners.

Getting one of the top five City firms on board would obviously be a huge boost to the scheme, however, so far only Allen & Overy says that it supports the scheme and that it is considering it seriously.

To date it is mostly small- and medium-sized firms that have gone for the scheme.However, on the positive side several in-house legal departments have been awarded Lexcel, including the London Borough of Lewisham's legal services department, one of the country's flagship local government legal departments.Some solicitors, such as Mr Andrew, maintain that the key to Lexcel's success lies in law firms' biggest clients, such as councils.

He says: 'My own experience is that the public or fairly small businesses don't tend to differentiate between lawyers on the basis of whether they have ISO 9000 or Lexcel, but the bigger companies and local authorities and organisations do.

If the local authorities and in-house legal departments go for it - and there is some indication that they are doing - then they are going to want it from their solicitors.

So I think there will a gradual trickle down effect from that'.It is possible now to be assessed for IiP and Lexcel at the same time, but it was not when Simpson Millar was assessed in August last year.

Nevertheless, Peter Watson, the firm's managing partner, thinks that it was worth going for both awards.

He says: 'Clients have commented that it is an impressive achievement to be one of the first firms to get Lexcel.

However, its profile needs to be raised before potential clients will start looking to firms which have got it, and to some extent its profile might be raised by more firms getting it.

It is something of a vicious circle'.