I have become accustomed to reading letters in the Gazette bemoaning the 'modern ways' of the profession.

However, I greatly object to the sentiment expressed by Henry Dyson (see [2003] Gazette, 18 September, 16) that only those solicitors from comfortable middle-class families had an education that enabled them to write good quality letters and address fellow professionals and clients in the correct manner.

Neither my husband nor I came from comfortable middle- class families and I can assure Mr Dyson that we have both had an excellent education, having attended schools of the highest academic reputation and top universities.

We are both quite capable of writing excellent English and know how to address our fellow professionals and clients with dignity.

We know many solicitors from similar backgrounds to ours who are equally capable in this respect.

The Gazette takes great pains to condemn race and sex discrimination.

Yet to suggest by necessary implication that those from working-class and lower middle-class backgrounds are poorly educated and cannot write good English or address people properly, and that by admitting such people the solicitors' profession has lowered its standards, is class prejudice of the worst kind.

Claire Jones, Haywards Heath, West Sussex