It was at the beginning of June 1997, a month after New Labour came to government.

Gallup gave Tony Blair an 82% popularity rating.

A new Labour spin was given to the old Tory onslaught on 'bogus' asylum seekers, with an attack on their immigration advisors.

By early 1998, plans for regulation of 'unscrupulous immigration advisors' were to encompass 'unscrupulous solicitors'.

Jack Straw was said to be accusing the Legal Aid Board and Law Society of doing too little to control them.

Out of 250 companies or individual advisors, who gave 'cause for concern', 38 were firms of solicitors.Tyndallwoods is a medium-sized practice with a human rights orientation.

The overwhelming proportion of our refugee work, is legally aided, and much of the advocacy is free.

We have had a Legal Aid franchise in immigration since before the launch of the national scheme.As a matter of team policy, we cease acting in claims which we come to regard as either dishonest or unarguable.

We seek to be scrupulously honest in dealings with Home Office, Immigration Service and Court service.

At the same time we seek to be robust, conscientious and persistent, in advocating our clients' claims.

Out of more than 40 of our clients recognised as refugees since January 1997, only a handful achieved asylum in the United Kingdom without review or appeal of an initial refusal.

Is it for this 'conduct' that we are in the sights of the Secretary of State?The Law Society's immigration law sub-committee has for more than five years been actively concerned about unscrupulous immigration advisors and has plans to improve solicitors' standards of immigration work.

The Society has an obvious interest in the identity of the 'Croydon 38'.

However, the government was unwilling to hand over names.

The Society has repeatedly encouraged the government to take effective actions to drive incompetent and dishonest immigration consultants out of business, to prosecute any solicitors committing offences, and to pursue formal complaints to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS ) where appropriate.

At the same time, we have pressed the government to recognise the urgent need to expand the number and improve the geographical spread of competent advisors.

One of the primary steps identified, was improvements to the legal aid scheme, including payment for advocacy at hearings.Gossip emanating from the Immigration Service revealed that Tyndallwoods might be one of the Croydon 38.

The OSS eventually received the Home Secretary's list but apparently without any specific complaints or evidence.

I wrote to the Secretary of State and the OSS to ask a few pertinent questions.In July, two of my colleagues independently complained to the Lord Chancellor about the conduct in different appeals of the same special adjudicator at Birmingham.

One of the complaints was taken up by Sally Keeble MP, who copied to the complainant, a bundle of material generated by the investigation.

The bundle incorporated a 'Profile of Tyndallwoods', written by the Birmingham Regional Adjudicator apparently for the Chief Adjudicator.

Nothing in the profile was apparently intended to be complimentary.We have to assume that the Immigration Service and the Home Office would not assemble and retain a blacklist of Immigration appellants' representatives, unless they intended to use it for something.

Was the Immigration Service, the Home Office or the Immigration Appeals Authority treating applications which we made differently from applications made by others? Might our clients be disadvantaged? Is it right that government officials, with or without government endorsement, are able to take concealed steps to penalise immigration representatives, for -- as we would see it -- ingenuity, energy and persistence?