Whether the whole of the profession in private practice should continue to pay universal negligence and dishonesty cover is an issue under much discussion.

The cost of protecting clients from fraud, misconduct, negligence and sloppy service does not come cheap.

In 1995, the Solicitors Complaints Bureau cost solicitors £13.2 million.

On top of that, solicitors paid £196 million to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund for negligence cover and a further £1000 each to the compensation fund.The UK is almost alone in that all its jurisdictions require contributions to guarantee compensation funds and professional indemnity cover.

In the Irish Republic, contributions to the compensation fund are compulsory but firms are not required to take out professional negligence cover.

The Australian position is closest to the UK.

New Zealand has a compulsory guarantee fund but no compulsory professional negligence cover.

In the USA there is often provision for compulsory contributions to trust account protection funds, but few states have a mandatory requirement for professional indemnity.

In terms of financial redress our clients receive unparalleled protection, and we should be justifiably proud of that.For their part, solicitors have had to face excessive regulation over the past few years; indeed the rule book has grown ever more voluminous.

Ironically, the will has been for deregulation but, as regulations are re-made, codes are created to ensure the profession's freedom does not bring it into disrepute or harm the public interest.The aim of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) is to maintain self-regulation.

I believe that the profession and the public are best served by this.

Since a report by the Royal Commission on Legal Services in 1979, the Law Society has been aware of public disquiet over the arrangements for regulation.In his 1995 annual report, the legal services ombudsman (LSO) set the profession a clear challenge.

The LSO said that in order to retain self-regulation, the OSS (then the Solicitors Complaints Bureau) would have to adopt a more customer-friendly approach; and that solicitors' firms would have to improve their in-house complaints procedures.

Both the OSS and solicitors' firms would have to deliver a higher level of complainant satisfaction to prevent the demands for an independent regulatory system becoming irresistible.

Some consumer bodies have been calling for the independent regulation of solicitors.

However, this would, I believe, leave the consumer a lot worse off.Two words have become inevitable in any discussion on the reform of complaints handling and the regulatory functions of the Law Society: 'independence' and 'impartiality'.

It is a mistake to confuse one with the other.It is critical that the OSS is not only impartial in all its dealings, but is seen to be impartial.

A fully independent regulator and complaints handler cannot be desirable.

An independent body would probably be required to report to Parliament; in effect it would become a government agency.

This is a fundamental constitutional issue that transcends any possible superficial advantages that might be gained from total independence.

If regulation rested in the hands of the government, the policing of the profession wo uld rest there too.

If this were the case, would lawyers feel free to take on high profile cases that involved fighting the government? The legal profession and its regulation requires a demonstrable independence from government intervention to protect the public.

That is what we have today.

Yet there is still demand for complete independence.It is surely up to the professional body to regulate its own members.

The Society's founders wanted to be able to exclude from its ranks solicitors who failed to serve their clients effectively.

Once Parliament gave the Society its self-regulatory powers, it became clear that these powers could only be exercised where there was some clear public interest at stake in addition to achieving an end that was good for solicitors.