I have a firm turning over £2.2m with eight solicitors. In 2009/2010, we paid £10,610 for practising certificates and the compensation fund etcetera.

On the figures set out in a letter from the Solicitors Regulation Authority dated 28 May 2010, if nothing changed, we would be paying £22,105. When proposals to change the way the SRA was funded by the profession were first mooted and various examples put forward, it seemed likely that a firm like mine, which had quite a few solicitors and then some unqualified staff, would fall to be a fairly average firm without too much change in the total contribution.

I understand the rationale for the changes in respect of one or two firms which have a small number of qualified practitioners, or a very small number of partners, but conduct a vast amount of work using unqualified staff, and therefore were paying an incredibly low fee to the SRA.

My firm strikes me as being a fairly typical medium-sized high street practice, already dealing with a host of issues relating to the current recession. I simply cannot believe that the SRA is seriously proposing to significantly more than double the fee payable by my firm.

James Maxey , managing partner, Express, Manchester