Is there a future for sole practice (see [2006] Gazette, 18 May, 14)?

Yes, we do have a future. Admittedly, many sole practitioners do practise in the high street, but the threat is just as pressing for two to four-partner firms, of which there are many more on the high street than sole practitioners.


The old chestnut of being a disproportionate drain on the compensation fund can only be based on cursory and ill-informed analysis of the statistics of the fund, and the way that partners rely on their fellow partners or indemnity insurance.


Reference was made to the modest attendance at the Sole Practitioners Group's recent annual conference. I suspect that the number of fee-paying delegates at any Law Society annual conference in relation to the number of solicitors that exist is certainly no higher a proportion and probably a considerably worse one.


As to age, one is as old as one feels, and the sole practitioners who attended the conference clearly indicated an exacting independence of thought; they showed that they were both young at heart and in mind.


We feel passionately that we have a role to fulfil in supporting local communities and providing access to legal advice and justice, which the factory enterprises so favoured by the present government are neither willing nor able to provide. We provide a face-to-face, not a faceless, service to our clients and this is something we expect our representative body, whomsoever it may be, to fight for.


David O'Hagan, Barry & Blott, Bristol