Here for the first time in London, I have the opportunity as President to open a conference where I can pay tribute to the role London lawyers play in the legal system and in the life of our Law Society.

Here 35% of our profession are based.

Here half of all trainee solicitors are serving their training contracts.

Here half of the profession's gross income is earned, contributing £500m to the nation's invisible export earnings.

In London is the headquarters of our Society surrounded by the departments and institutions whose decisions impact on your work.

Here on any day of the week you will find Society representatives arguing your corner in Westminster, Whitehall, to the media, to the Office of Fair Trading or to the consumer bodies.

Here we have created the legal capital of Europe if not of the world.We may be part of a multi-million pound legal services industry, but I see solicitors as an independent service profession.

What does independence mean to the public? It is freedom from government interference and guarantees the rights of citizens.

It underpins the rule of law.Why was it that there was no independent legal profession in communist Russia? Why until recently were there so few lawyers in China? It is heartening that as states adopt a more democratic framework one of their first acts is to create an independent legal profession.

It should be gratifying for us that UK lawyers are often among the first to be invited to advise on how such a legal profession should be structured.

Nor must we forget the role of our solicitors who fight for human rights.

Often unpaid, always unstinting in their service to the client, this band of lawyers deserves the thanks and respect of us all.

They are not just members of a legal services industry, but of a profession that serves and cares for its clients.The challenge for me as President and for the Law Society is to find the right ways to serve both the profession and the public.

I reject entirely the notion that we should retreat into an exclusive self-serving pressure group, concerned only for our own pockets.

Our profession is self-regulating.

But the Law Society cannot impose rules for the benefit of its own members; they must be in the public interest.

All our rules must either be approved by the Lord Chancellor and heads of divisions or the Master of the Rolls alone.

If we abdicated our regulatory role, a more onerous regime would undoubtedly be imposed from outside and you can be sure the profession would still be required to pay.

Members of the profession would also be paying subscriptions to the Law Society, presumably to lobby for lower standards and a laxer regime.Given that the Law Society is a self-regulating body, I agree with those who want to see the minimum of rules and regulations, simply and clearly expressed, consistent with our desire to keep standards high.

As part of a policy of de-regulating where possible, we are massively simplifying the practising and investment business certificate exercise.

One form will suffice to make a return for all solicitors in the firm.

We have already announced that we shall be looking for ways of assessing the financial impact of any new regulations.

We are committed to re-writing the accounts rules in plain English, and I am determined that the next edition of the Guide to Professional Conduct will be shorter and more accessible to users.As far as financial services are concerned, we were innocent bystanders caught by a general government scheme to regulate crooked investment advisers.

Given that we could not escape altogether, we have emerged with a regime which is light but effective, and which is the subject of jealous sniping by other financial advisers.

Financial services have become somewhat of a quick-sand swallowing up the naive and innocent customer.

As solicitors we can offer to our clients firm ground.Last year your Council decided to adopt new anti-discrimination rules.

A few have argued that these rules add to the burden of regulation, or that they give the impression that solicitors cannot be trusted to apply the law.

I see this in a very different light.

We should be determined to show that our profession is open to all regardless of their gender, race or disability.

At a time when there are more applicants than vacancies, choice must be exercised on proper non-discriminatory principles.It is inevitable that in a recession the profession cannot absorb all those who would like to join it.

None of us should underestimate the sense of frustration, worry and desperation that must be felt by those prospective trainees who have dedicated years of their life to complete their degree and the legal practice course.

Now they are frustrated in completing their qualification, having invested heavily, usually on borrowed money.

In fact, the number of trainees dropped by only 15% at the depth of the recession.

Numbers are rising and have nearly reached the high point again.

But more students are seeking to enter the profession.

We continue to look for solutions to this problem.

But I am sadly of the view that the solution will only be found when this recession has clearly ended and business starts recruiting graduates in increasing numbers.The cost of civil justiceEveryone now recognises that the cost of going to court is too high.

A number of commissions have looked at this problem over recent years.

The Civil Justice Review produced its report, and the Bar and Law Society had a joint working party who in turn have brought forward their recommendations.

Lord Woolf is now again addressing the task of reducing the cost of litigation.

Can he succeed where others have failed? How can we tackle the twin problems of delay and cost both before the trial and at the court hearing? The common-sense answer, so far resisted as unthinkable, is that limits should be set to control the key cost components.

The first cost component we must limit is the process of discovery of documents which sometimes reaches ludicrous proportions.

Every day of the week in litigation offices, thousands of pages are being photocopied dozens of times, costing our clients untold amounts.

Litigators have to assemble these mountains, or, on the other side, to pore through them searching for inconsistencies or smoking guns.

As much as 90% of these photocopies may be totally useless to the process of adjudication on the case.

The great principle of maximum disclosure, or cards on the table, has become boxes on the floor that reach to the ceiling.

Limits to the process must be set.Then the trial in the courtroom.

Go into any court any day of the week.

Squeeze past clients and lawyers crammed in corridors trying to reach settlements.

If you are lucky enough to find a trial in session, you may well find counsel solemnly reading out loud documents and cases as if the judge had not already had a chance to read them and did not have copies in front of him.

Advocacy ought to be about putting arguments persuasively, but as briefly and succinctly as possible.

More often it is about leaving no stone unturned.

No question, however remotely relevant, is left unasked.

No argument, howev er fanciful, is unexplored.

Only fixed time limits for trials will stop this.

Not only will they lead to cost savings for litigants in the case, but for all other litigants whose cases can be started on time.

If advocates can manage to present a brief to the Supreme Court of the United States within a time limit of no more than 30 minutes, we can surely accept the concept of time limits ourselves.We must also look at smaller value cases afresh.

The county court is becoming increasingly uneconomic for these cases.

I see a role for solicitors here.

In our day to day practice we are used to negotiation and conciliation.

We use our expertise to bring about business deals.

We help clients settle over 90% of personal injury claims and matrimonial disputes.

I envisage that a cheaper arbitration service without court hearings could be offered to litigants.

Local solicitors could act as arbitrators, phoning people at their home or their work if they need to clarify the facts and reaching swift authoritative decisions which would carry confidence in local communities.

This truly would enable us to bring justice closer to the people at a price they can afford.Criminal justiceIt can escape no one's attention that there is continuing public concern about the quality of criminal justice.

Victims have been ignored for too long.

Our code of practice requires solicitors to treat all witnesses considerately.

We hear increasingly from the government about the need to put victims first and to take their feelings into account when considering sentence.

But is it not ironic that this same government should be emasculating the scheme of compensation for victims and replacing it with a tariff that will drastically cut awards to the most seriously injured victims? Already the House of Lords has rejected this unjust plan and in a few weeks' time the House of Commons will vote on whether to proceed with it.

Do MPs realise that under this plan, the award to a young person unable to work for life as a result of a criminal attack could be cut by around 80%?Another concern is what appears to be a concerted public campaign by police officers to blame lawyers for failings in the justice system.

Does this really help public understanding, or is it just a smokescreen designed to divert attention from the police's own failings? Too often people wrongly end up in prison because an investigating officer becomes blindly convinced of someone's guilt.

When the miscarriage is finally identified it is often through the dogged unpaid determination of a defence solicitor.

Thoughtful and wise police officers are humble enough to value the role that defence solicitors play in checking and testing their evidence.

Unthinking spokesmen, looking for cheap headlines, argue that defence lawyers are just playing games, or suggest that we should abandon our duty to protect the interests of defendants in favour of collaborating in search of 'the truth'.

Whilst one might forgive such misunderstanding in a layman, or even a raw police recruit, it is not acceptable in chief constables.

The Law Society's charter reminds us that we serve law and justice.

We must stand up for the proper roles that lawyers, both prosecuting and defending, play in our system.

It is vital that the government puts into effect the clear recommendations, not only of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice but of previous home secretaries, to establish an authority to look at miscarriages of justice.

This becomes even more urgent in the face of changes to the right of silence.You would expect me to talk abou t legal aid.

I must confess that when I struggled out of bed at 3am the other morning to take my turn on the duty rota, I wondered (as perhaps did my wife) why I was bothering.

Some years ago I was instrumental in establishing the duty solicitor scheme and I still regard it as one of the most worthwhile contributions to the justice system.

I chaired the legal aid committee when the Society had responsibility for the scheme.

But the pressures on all of us providing legal aid services are becoming intolerable and must be making many wonder whether their dedication is justified.My firm's practice is a typical provincial high street practice.

We have always undertaken legal aid work - I am no longer certain we always will.

Like many of you here today and others unable to be with us because they cannot afford the time or the loss of fees, we find that we are working increasingly long hours for hourly rates that are simply no longer sustainable.

For two years we have seen no increase in hourly rates and, earlier this year, fixed rates in civil cases meant a reduction in my area of about one third.

This cannot go on.

We have shown clearly over many years our willingness, as a profession, to provide legal services for members of the public by carrying out work at little or no profit, and I suspect on many occasions at a loss.

Of course we are prepared to play our part in helping members of society who are less well placed than we are.

But there is a limit and, I fear, for many of us it is now being reached.

The ideas that I have talked about for changes in court procedure are designed to reduce the cost of litigation.

But solicitors cannot go on providing services for less than their true cost.I had some harsh words to say earlier in the year about the Legal Aid Board and the way in which it was handling franchising.

I am pleased that that issue has now been resolved.

The profession owes a debt of gratitude to the Law Society for the marked improvements in franchise terms its negotiators achieved.

It is also right on this occasion that I should welcome the improvement that the board has achieved over the last few years in the handling of applications for legal aid.

Whilst there is still criticism, particularly where applications have been rejected for what appear to be petty reasons, nevertheless the time taken to process applications has been reduced substantially.We all recognise that it is in the public interest as well as in the interest of the profession that the legal aid scheme should not be abused.

I have recently called for changes to ensure that those with obviously lavish lifestyles are not allowed to drain the legal aid fund.

There have been cases where it would appear that legal aid was not justified and others where the costs incurred on the case seemed to be unreasonable against the total amount at stake.

It is important to tackle these problems so that the money available for legal aid can be concentrated on the clients who need and cases which deserve support.

But it is also important to keep the problem in perspective: only a tiny minority of legal aid cases raise any doubt about the entitlement of the assisted party or the importance of the case.

Many more needy would-be litigants are prevented from enforcing their rights because they can no longer afford legal aid contributions, or are no longer eligible.

The bulk of legal aid cases are thoroughly justified and are carried out efficiently and cost-effectively by the profession.

Would we not all love to hear somebody pay tribute to those many members of the profession who give their time and service to legal aid? All one ever seems to read in the newspapers or hear on the media from government spokesmen are criticisms of the profession.

I cannot recall the last time that anyone paid any tribute to the dedication of legal aid practitioners and particularly those who regularly get up in the middle of the night to go to police stations.

You may not hear it from anybody else but for my part I salute you.Let me quote from a letter one of my fellow Bar leaders recently received from the head of state of his country: 'I appreciate the vital role that your association plays in fulfilling the promise of our justice system...Your leadership helps focus our attention on the need for adequate resources for our justice system...I congratulate you on your record of accomplishment.

In a very profound sense, you can transform the character of our nation's justice system.' President Clinton to the president of the ABA.

Isn't it time that a responsible UK government recognised the public contribution our profession makes to justice and to the legal system.

Wouldn't it gladden our hearts to see, just once, headlines like these?We hear calls for fund holders to control legal aid expenditure.

Let no one be deceived by this talk.

It is not about empowering lawyers with freedom to exercise their professional judgment about what service clients need.

Nor is the agenda simply to restrain the growth in spending.

It is altogether more sinister: it is to fix arbitrary cash limits on the budget.

Think of a figure - probably what was spent last year.

That will be the total available budget for legal aid for every year to come.

Of course that would make things easy for Treasury planners, but life is not that easy.

Maybe there will come a day when life will be easy and legal aid could be fixed in this way.

Maybe there will be a day when the number of arrests does not rise, when the number of abused children does not grow, and when serious accidents do not ruin peoples' lives.

Legal aid spending has to be planned in relation to the needs it must serve, and if the government seriously wishes to understand these better, the Law Society stands ready to help.I recognise that for many solicitors the Law Society seems remote.

Those of us who have been members of the Council or on committees at the Law Society know that an enormous amount of effort is made both by us and by the Law Society staff to support solicitors in their practices.

But we need to explain more clearly to the profession what we do.

For this reason we will be arranging visits to each part of the country over the next two years when we will be inviting you to come and to hear what the Law Society does and can do for you and for us to listen to your concerns.

In addition, I am proposing to pay informal visits to each region during my presidency when I will meet as many solicitors as I can.

It is vitally important for the good of the whole profession that we should as a Council know your concerns and that we should be able to help firms face the challenges and changes that will come about during the next few years.Next year will see the 150th anniversary of the grant of the first royal charter to the Law Society in 1845.

The way I want this to be celebrated is not with plush gala dinners, but with a programme of popular events which can involve solicitors making law and the legal system come alive in their local communities.

I want these planned to help the public to recognise the achievements of solicitors in professional expertise, our contribution to the justi ce system, and our contribution to the local economy.

I hope, above all, that we can celebrate the work of the thousands of solicitors who through their firms up and down the country are ensuring that people do have access to justice.

This profession is united, whether we work in private practice or we are employed lawyers, because we are all a part of the same great tradition of service of which I am so proud to be the representative today.