LAST CHANCE FOR PI Some members of the profession welcome the services of organisations such as Claims Direct, because they can give up all that uncomfortable marketing, and all that time wasted on free first interviews that go nowhere.

But how long will it be before it occurs to one of those marketing organisations to stop outsourcing all this valuable work, and bring the legal services in-house?If they haven't thought of it yet, they will.

If they don't have the clout to do it yet, they will have by next year.Then we can all give up all the other uncomfortable aspects of self-employment, and become employees.

Then we would earn whatever the employers felt like paying - until it occurred to them to replace most of us with paralegals using expert systems.Remember conveyancing? I suspect that this year we have our last chance to keep control of personal injury, by setting up our own powerful marketing and disbursements-funding organisation.Nicholas Waller, solicitor, Folkestone, Kent