Before 1986, it seemed the only bar to being an insolvency practitioner was imprisonment, mental illness or, of course, bankruptcy.

That still left enough unscrupulous members of the profession to cause concern.

It was not unusual for such insolvency practitioners to hunt in packs, like jackals waiting for the last signs of life of a business to ebb away before cashing in on the kill.

That changed with the Insolvency Act 1986, which required insolvency practitioners (IPs) to be licensed and regulated.Ten years years on and the government is keen to see how much progress the accountant-dominated profession has made.

Today, there are 1800 IPs, of whom only 200 are solicitors.The Department of Trade and Industry has set up a working party to investigate and report back and, contrary to expectation, its chairman is not an accountant.

Leading the review is Hull solicitor Chris Garwood -- senior partner with Garwood Devine, an insolvency practitioner for ten years and the Law Society's representative on the eight-strong workin g party.

He comments: 'Someone proposed me for chairman and that seemed to receive common favour.'Mr Garwood points out that in most other countries his election would have surprised no one.

'In most other jurisdictions insolvency administration is dealt with by lawyers.

It's a peculiar feature of this country that it's devolved to accountants.'One hundred years ago lawyers did not want to get their hands dirty by advising in the murky world of trade and commerce.

In particular, they did not want anything to do with failed businesses, suggests Mr Garwood.Instead, it was accountants who grasped the opportunity.

Before the 1986 legislation introducing IP exams and tough regulation, there was a small rush of lawyers applying for authorisation.

Mr Garwood explains that those solicitors who did qualify saw it as a way of generating work.Many solicitors who became authorised IPs with a view to practising found themselves in bitter opposition to accountants.

Mr Garwood says: 'The minute I became authorised a number of accountant practitioners and their firms successively made it clear that if I ever took an appointment I would never receive any instructions again.' Mr Garwood suspects that the same thing was said to other lawyers who became authorised.

'It boils down to a purely commercial matter.

Do I want to risk losing instructions from established clients or prospective new clients?'But Mr Garwood says the response he encountered only served to make him more determined to practise.

With hindsight, it was the right decision.

Mr Garwood's firm is the only practice in the country that does insolvency work exclusively.

Mr Garwood says: 'My field touches on a vast range of people.

We advise, not only creditor and debtors and IPs, but customer, supplier, employee, guarantor, spouse, director, shareholder' Both partners are practising IPs.Mr Garwood believes IP work is a potential growth area for solicitors, which could benefit the profession.

However, he tempers this with the caution that those thinking of taking up the call should be realistic.'You would be deluding yourself if you thought you could go off, take an examination and start specialising.

Solicitors should first have some experience in insolvency work.'In fact, statistically, solicitors have been less successful at passing the examinations than those with an accountancy background.Mr Garwood says that it is important to be aware of your own limitations in the IP field.

'We can deal very effectively with individual voluntary arrangements and personal bankruptcies.

It would be impossible for us to deal with administrative receiverships and administrations.

We don't have the back-up staff and we have not set out to build up this type of business.' But City firms, says Mr Garwood, are capable of taking on this work without ruffling too many feathers.

'This isn't an area where there is a war between the legal and accountancy professions.

The two work very well together on insolvencies.'Latest figures show that there is enough work for both professions.

An underlying growth in insolvency since the Second World War together with an explosion in credit facilities means that there are now a myriad of ever more complex ways of getting into debt.

Mr Garwood points out: 'Most people [within the strict definition of the Act] are insolvent at some point in their life.' Although Mr Garwood supports the 1986 legislation, designed to reduce the number of bankruptcies by creating a rescue culture, its timing was unfortunate, he says.'Basically, before 1986, if you were insol vent you went bust.

But it would have been easier to rescue businesses that were in a better economic climate than that since 1986.'The slump at the turn of this decade forced those people in need of financial help to look to the IP profession in ever greater numbers.

But in their desperation, a minority still found themselves dealing with the kind of IPs the 1986 regulation had sought to eradicate.

Mr Garwood says some IPs can still sometimes be found gathering like vultures over the remains of a crashed business.Mr Garwood is under no illusion as to the importance of the task the working party has been asked to perform.

'You have to ask yourself, if the purpose [of regulation] was to get rid of the bad boys, has it worked?'The review will be the first comprehensive investigation of the impact of the 1986 legislation upon the profession.

However, Mr Garwood stresses: 'There have been no great scandals or crises, but the authorising bodies felt it was an appropriate time to look at regulation.' A much more worrying cause for concern has been a decline in the number of authorised IPs.

There are 200 fewer today than in 1986, and only half of those are practising.Mr Garwood says: 'The working party will seek to identify concerns and issues so it can consider them and decide what could be done about them.

But if people don't tell us, we won't know.'