Three solicitors in the cabinet and the first solicitor in the Ministry of Justice meant Gordon Brown's reshuffle last week was good news for the profession.


Around the cabinet table are Commons leader Harriet Harman, communities secretary Hazel Blears and Scottish-qualified Douglas Alexander, international development secretary.



Jack Straw, a barrister, was confirmed as the first non-peer Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. His team has two ministers of state - non-lawyers David Hanson and Michael Wills - and three junior ministers: non-lawyers Bridget Prentice, who remains to steer the Legal Services Bill through the Commons, and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and Maria Eagle, who was a claimant solicitor in Liverpool prior to her election in 1997. Lord Hunt, whose background is in health, had a spell as an adviser to national law firm Beachcroft.



Baroness Scotland QC has been elevated to Attorney-General, with Vera Baird QC promoted to Solicitor-General.



Law Society President Fiona Woolf said: 'We look forward to establishing strong working relationships with the new ministers dealing with legal affairs, many of whom we have worked constructively with in the past.'



Well-known solicitor Sir Digby Jones is to be ennobled and become minister for trade and investment. He will also chair UK Trade and Investment, which is actively involved in promoting legal services abroad.



The other solicitors in government are Mike O'Brien, who moves from Solicitor-General to minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, whip Claire Ward, and Sadiq Khan, who enters the government as a junior whip.



The reshuffle of the Conservatives' shadow cabinet has seen non-lawyer Nick Herbert, who was only elected in 2005, appointed shadow justice secretary, while party vice-chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi, a former Dewsbury solicitor, is to become a peer and shadow minister for community cohesion.



See also Editorial

Neil Rose