I write in connection with your story last week, ‘Abbey strikes thousands from conveyancing panel’ (see [2009] Gazette, 26 March, 1). Abbey’s action is outrageous.

I note that the Law Society plans to meet Abbey again and I respectfully suggest that it should adopt a robust approach. For example, the Society could suggest that, if Abbey persists in this action, the Society will take up prominent press advertisements warning clients that if they seek mortgages from Abbey their choice of solicitor will be severely restricted.

Half of the firms in the country have been removed from Abbey’s panel, for reasons best known to Abbey which do not seem to make sense. This means that if the client wishes to use their own solicitor, the cost to that client would be greatly increased.

Such advertising would be picked up by the media and Abbey would face a storm of adverse publicity. It would also serve to discourage other lenders from following its lead.

The Society owes it to its members to protect them from unilateral attack by big organisations.

Aubrey Isaacson, Aubrey Isaacson Solicitors, Manchester