Fraud and solicitors' involvement in it is back in the headlines.

The issue arises in connection with new, fairly worrying statistics from the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS).

It also arises in relation to the problem of advance fee fraud and the risk that solicitors will be sucked wittingly or unwittingly into these scams.As far as the OSS mid-year figures are concerned, there is one brightish note -- that the amount paid out from the compensation fund looks set to drop slightly this year.

However, the picture in relation to OSS inspection of accounts and interventions is far from promising.

Just under half of the 402 firms inspected so far this year have been found to have breached the accounts rules in some respect.

Meanwhile, the average shortfall on account has risen very substantially from £29,000 last year to £61,000 for the first half of this year, although the figures are skewed by six cases where shortages exceeded the quarter of a million mark.

The number of interventions is also up slightly.This all goes to show that fraud is not an easy problem to lick.

The Law Society has invested very heavily in fighting default -- a cost borne by every solicitor.

And while it is to be hoped that the figures revealed last week reflect much improved detection rates, there is no evidence that the underlying problem is on the way out.

A tiny minority of the profession continues to resort to fraud and therefore extreme vigilance by the OSS must continue, even though the cost to the majority is high.In the mean time, extreme vigilance by every solicitor is the answer to the escalating problem of advance fee fraud.

The so-called Nigerian letters are the best known examples of attempts at this kind of fraud and one of these even found its way to the director of the Serious Fraud Office, George Staple, recently.

Anyone who has read one of these letters, which are generally poorly written and otherwise ham-fisted, might think that solicitors' only action would be to alert the police.

However, a number of solicitors have failed to see through the scams and have been sucked in.Recent adverse publicity surrounding Nigerian letters should result in fewer instances of solicitors being duped.

But the problem is unlikely to go away.

Advance fee frauds are around in more sophisticated, less easily identifiable forms where the perpetrators are quite likely to be using reputable banks.

Solicitors must therefore be constantly alert.

Fraud is a major threat to the health of a profession which is rooted in probity.