The extinction of the sole practitioner has been prophesied for so many years now that the prophets of doom should by now be feeling a little self-conscious. Your own pages have seen some wonderfully confident predictions of disaster in the recent tough round of PII renewals.

So it was interesting to see the article by Deborah Evans, chief executive of the Legal Complaints Service (see [2009] Gazette, 1 October, 8) on the statistical incidence of complaints against solicitors. She reported that sole practitioners make up 9% of practising UK solicitors, but generate only 8% of complaints.

It is as welcome as it is unusual to be given facts, rather than innuendo and assumptions, about how much trouble sole practice generates. And the evidence of the LCS does seem to accord with the continuing survival of the sole practice. It also accords with common sense, since sole practice has, by its very definition, no room for passengers and is therefore a model that only works for committed and determined individuals who can reliably generate repeat business.

The next time that one big oak tree, observing all those frail little saplings down there, remarks complacently to another big oak tree that the future undoubtedly lies with big trees, not acorns, it would be healthy for the profession to note that it does sound a tad ridiculous.

Dick Jennings, R.D.Y. Jennings & Co Solicitors, Malton, North Yorks