Lawyers must learn to talk to the media in language it understands, and communicate the value of law and lawyers to a public that does not seem to care for either, according to Law Society President Fiona Woolf and her immediate predecessor Kevin Martin. Speaking at a joint Law Society and Bar Council roundtable on lawyers and judges in the media, held to coincide with the opening of the legal year, Ms Woolf said: 'We may have to do something that the Law Society's been a bit nervous about - to get a bit more political.' On issues such as Clementi, she said, 'we've chosen to work with the government because just saying no isn't going to get us anywhere'. But, she added, 'that's been misinterpreted by some of our profession as being acquiescent to the government'. Mr Martin said better communication was required, and lawyers must not 'labour under any misapprehensions that... if we speak in the way that we normally do, it goes down very well with the media and the people. They'll get bored, they'll switch off.' Leaders of the legal profession in 37 countries attended the roundtable at Chancery Lane.