'Last year, the Bar Council celebrated its centenary.

This year the candles on the Law Society's 150th birthday cake burn brightly.

Yet the history of the two arms of the profession - and more important still, the co-operation between us - goes back far longer than either anniversary.Solicitors and barristers working together can provide a service to the client which is unparalleled anywhere in the world and which is the envy of many of our foreign colleagues.

For tens of thousands of solicitors up and down the country, access to the Bar means access to specialist advocacy and advice which the solicitors cannot provide in-house, and without the fear that the client may be tempted to transfer his or her long-term allegiance to another firm.Even the City giants, whom most solicitors could not begin to emulate in the range of services and specialities they can offer, make extensive use of the Bar.This co-operation means barristers and solicitors working together to ensure that the client gets the best possible service from the highly skilled team.I am encouraging the Bar to talk with the solicitors with whom they work - on the circuits and in the regions, in the specialist Bars and associations and between individual firms and the chambers they use - to ensure that each gets the best out of the other and, more important still, that the client gets the best out of both.It is important that a solicitor knows what to expect from the barrister he or she instructs and that the barrister knows what to expect from the solicitor at every stage of the case in order to prevent needless duplication of work.Simple steps such as ensuring that compatible technology is used - for pleadings, drafts and passing instructions - can make for a more efficient service.

We have started that process with the Crown Prosecution Service and I look forward to making this new partnership between barristers and solicitors stronger still.Such co-operation also works at the level of our two organisations.

Even the disagreements over rights of audience in recent years have not been allowed to prevent the close working relationship which the Law Society and the Bar Council have enjoyed for many years.

We meet regularly.

We discuss matters of concern to our members.

We often jointly represent the En glish and Welsh legal profession abroad.Our common ground and joint beliefs are far wider than the few areas of our disagreements.

Together, the combined voice of the Law Society and the Bar Council is a voice of influence and significance in the public arena.

Sometimes there is no other voice which is heard to ensure that the interests of justice and the individual are not sacrificed for some public expediency.Together we have campaigned against eligibility cuts for legal aid; for greater financial support for new entrants to the profession as discretionary local authority grants dwindle; against changes to criminal law which lessen the protection for the weak and the vulnerable; and for a fair system for UK lawyers to be allowed to establish themselves and to practise in other EU countries.Our fundamental mission is to help people and promote justice.

Often others have conflicting aims.

The media only sees the worst: the high profile cases where something has gone wrong or where the system has been shown at its worst.They do not see the many thousands of ordinary people who have been helped or whose problems have been solved in or out of court.

When the law works well, it finds a just solution.I have great respect for the work done by the Law Society, its highly professional staff, its President and officers.

Our shared responsibility for our legal profession brings greater strength and a united front at home and abroad.I have the greatest pleasure, therefore, in wishing the Law Society well on its 150th birthday.I look forward to both the Bar's and the Law Society's candles burning brightly for the next 150 years.