Let us be grateful to the lord chancellor at least for his frank warning that lawyers dependent on state funding would be ‘wise to reconsider’ their expectations of earnings (see [2009] Gazette, 12 March, 1).

He trumpets the principle that running ‘successful legal businesses is not the purpose of law’. This is hardly controversial, as during 40 years in the law I have never heard anyone attempt to argue such a narrow and selfish definition of the purpose of law.

However, to imply, as the lord chancellor appears to do, that the purpose of law (which is perhaps closely related to achieving justice) can be delivered other than through successful legal businesses is another matter entirely.

Straw questions whether legal aid lawyers should expect to be paid more than others dependent on the public purse. Actually, most legal aid lawyers are paid about the same as teachers, a little more than nurses and much less than doctors, without the job security or generous public sector pension entitlements.

Those of us who have built a practice in family law or crime and wish to offer our services to clients who require state funding can do so only through the medium of private practice. And if we accept the risks of private practice, why should we not also expect the rewards? In suggesting otherwise, the lord chancellor insults practising lawyers and demeans the eminence of his office.

In fact, of course, unlike public sector pay, rates paid for legal aid work have been virtually frozen for many years. This is creating a two-tier private practice and law firms that demand decent pay rates are increasingly shunning legal aid. In the same way, the government almost destroyed National Health dentistry by driving rates down to a level which private practice would not accept.

When they finally realised their error, they started importing dentists from Poland – but it may be rather more difficult to find graduates of that estimable country qualified in English law.

Geyve Walker, Arnison & Company Solicitors, Penrith

It is no longer unusual to read of a politician further denigrating legal aid solicitors, but to see in print that a Labour lord chancellor believes that legal aid clients deserve a second-class service is distressing. True, legal aid reforms mean ‘running a successful legal business’ will soon no longer be viable. Some of us already worked that out and have moved on. However with what does Jack Straw intend to replace these firms? Unsuccessful practices? Legal aid factories employing masses of untrained and unqualified paralegals making mistakes due to time pressures and having to concentrate on volume than quality? And who is going to supervise and train these people as experienced practitioners withdraw from a system that now seems intent on driving them into bankruptcy? The government may think the way ahead is to impose telephone and internet-based services but how many poor and low-income consumers have this kind of access? The campaigns against Post Office closures show the importance of face-to-face contact for poor and vulnerable people. Is the victim of domestic violence to explain their story over the telephone to a stranger? There is a whisper that this summer marks the 60th anniversary of legal aid. No wonder no one is celebrating. It's not even mentioned on the Legal Services Commission’s website. Cordella Bart-Stewart, Chair, Black Solicitors Network, London

So Jack Straw believes that my legal aid colleagues and I should expect to be treated like public sector employees. Well, if that’s the case, I look forward to receiving written confirmation from the Legal Services Commission of the details of my new public sector pension provision (backdated to when I qualified of course), my 35 days’ annual leave entitlement, six months’ paid sick leave benefit and generous flexitime arrangements.Simon Hutchence, KHF Solicitors, Salford

Looking every bit like a 1950s Politburo member on the cover of the Gazette, Jack Straw really has done his socialist, lawyer-despising cabal proud in his speech to the London School of Economics.His proposals would surprise and shock many in the legal aid sector if it were not for the fact that they have already, during the lifetime of the present administration, been suffering from cut after cut in their earnings while being forced to undertake pointless tasks to prove that they are actually doing their jobs. I have been looking at average pay scales for a number of other publicly funded professionals recently and note that while many do not receive salaries as high as some legal aid lawyers, they are to a large extent in a much better position through the provision of very attractive pensions and other terms and conditions. And many, if not most, have not had to undergo anything like as advanced and lengthy education and training. Once again Straw is using the old ‘fat cat’ argument as a stick with which to beat the majority of vocationally committed professionals who do not earn anything like the very few ‘at the top of the profession’ who earn much more. The argument is specious. The real high-flyers are generally people of extremely high calibre, and work insanely hard. They deserve their higher earnings by dint of exceptional ability and application, but they still tend to have earnings far below those of commercial specialists of equivalent ranking. No reasonable person would deride average earners in any working group because of the existence in the group of a small number of much higher earners.As for Straw trying to dictate the way in which we are going to have to adapt, neither he nor any of his over-remunerated advisers appear to have much experience of working in the real world. And he seems to have already forgotten what scorn has been poured on the Carter report’s brave announcement that large practices would reap the benefits of economies of scale, and be able to do more cases, more cheaply and more effectively. He has also conveniently forgotten that the figures clearly showed that Public Defender offices practised law no more effectively and at a higher cost per case than private legal aid firms, and were therefore not encouraged in the long term. It would also not be convenient for him to disclose as part of his case that on a lawyer-for-lawyer basis, including paralegals, the running of the Crown Prosecution Service is a more expensive exercise than the funding of legal aid law carried out by private firms. I venture to suggest that Straw would save more money in the long run and do this country far more good if he were to recognise the value of and invest more in small- to mid-sized high street lawyers than to keep marginalising and demonising them. The network of local lawyers in this country should be viewed as an asset, not a liability, and although often scorned in popular humour more people commend our existence and availability than deride us. Peter Belshaw, Belshaws Solicitors, Stockport

It is Friday 13 March 2009 at 8pm. I am still in my office working on legal aid files. I have just picked up my Law Society Gazette to see the headline – Jack Straw suggests that running successful legal businesses is not the purpose of law. This truly is Friday the 13th.I am absolutely appalled that Straw believes that legal aid lawyers should be paid less than those in private practices (whatever that means). Perhaps he would like to explain to me exactly why I should do an extremely difficult important and stressful job, often working the hours which public sector employees would certainly not consider, for less reward.Straw seems to miss one other very important point, in that we shoulder the liabilities for providing an underfunded service. That means that we shoulder the responsibility for the technology involved in running the business, staff and any redundancies, suppliers, rent or purchase of properties and everything else that goes into running a business. It is already difficult enough simply to pay staff an adequate salary for the amount of work they are expected to do in a legal aid practice, which vastly outweighs the amount of work carried out by public sector employees.Finally, I am speechless, and that doesn’t happen very often, that he should suggest that work be carried out by paralegals and legal executives. We are already experiencing the Crown Prosecution Service using assistant prosecutors, the standard of which, on the whole, is dismal. They are unable to make decisions without referring to lawyers, which holds up the court proceedings. They very often do not understand the law of evidence. They have absolutely no idea of how to present a case in an unbiased and professional manner; and by professional I am referring to the Codes of Conduct of the profession. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but the vast majority would not survive in a legally aided practice.What are you going to do to stop the demise of the criminal justice system?Judith Mills, Gordon & Penney, Weston-super-Mare

Jack Straw questions whether legal aid lawyers should expect to be paid more than public sector employees.If indeed that is going to be the case, I look forward to being able to retire at 60 on an index-linked pension, to working from 9am to 5pm five days a week and, once I have 35 practising certificates under my belt, the possibility of a minor honour.Things can only get better.Richard Hare, Managing partner, McKinnells Lincoln