the cheque out M Coakley ([2001] Gazette, 5 January, 13) asks whether anyone else has encountered the lack of acceptance of cheques from sole practitioners.When I was in full-time practice, the situation arose a number of times, but it had nothing to do with causing offence or denigrating the sole operator.

Your correspondent does not in fact make it clear whether he/she was referring to deposit cheques or completion ones, but the issue is one of practicality not personality - namely the simple but vital problem which would arise on the (admittedly unlikely) event of that sole practitioner dying before the cheque is cleared.With a firm of more than one partner no problem arises - the remaining partner(s) continue to operate the bank account.

With a sole practitioner, on death the account would be frozen, and it might be months before the executors can reopen the account.

In the meantime the recipient has uncleared funds against which he may have already paid out - on a chain exchange or, worse still, completion.Richard Arnold, consultant, Peterborough