According to junior minister Jonathan Evans, he was reshuffled to the Lord Chancellor's Department for one reason in particular: to shepherd the potentially very troublesome Family Law Bill through Parliament.

Given the scale of the task -- never more in evidence than in the last week with the decisive pensions-splitting defeat in the House of Lords -- the reshuffle was a hefty vote of confidence in the Welsh solicitor.His transfer last November from the DTI, where he was corporate and consumer affairs minister, caught him on the hop as reshuffles are usually in the summer and there had been one in July.

Legal aid and criminal policy are the main responsibilities of Mr Evans' new job.

But he also has a rag-bag of other duties including women's issues, green issues, the small business ministerial taskforce and the private finance initiative.The 46-year-old Mr Evans is regarded as a forceful character but a highly astute politician nonetheless.

The man with the tiny Commons majority -- just 130 -- is known to devote much time to cultivating support in the right corners.He pursues a mercilessly market-driven line, offering little comfort to those in the legal profession who 'look back wistfully' to the days when conveyancing would see you comfortably off.

'I do not consider that it is at all likely that we will return to that world [and] the expectation that [solicitors] will be able to recreate it in the future is, I think, misplaced,' says the former managing partner of Cardiff firm Leo Abse & Cohen.He believes that the legal profession 'missed a very great opportunity' in not taking to financial services some years back.

And he applauds the enterprise of the accountants who not only scooped up financial services work but also branched out into management consultancy and other allied services.

'As a profession we have limited the service we offered to [those] with a very clear legal definition,' he says, clearly doubting the wisdom of such a course.But even given that the horizons are narrower than they might be, he believes solicitors can do much more to make the most of a market in which he discerns a massive amount of unmet legal need.

'Any constituency member of Parliament will tell you that there are wide numbers of people coming to them for legal advice of one sort or another.

As an MP who happens to be a lawyer, I have probably doubled the number of people coming along to see me in relation to legal difficulties.' He adds that the profession must tackle the problem that the public are put off going to solicitors because of the perception of unaffordable costs.So has the former DTI minister any ideas as to how solicitors might tap into the unmet legal need?The minister blusters that it is not for central government to devise a business plan for the legal profession.

But he says that the profession could pick up some useful pointers from the government-sponsored Business Link initiative which revolves around some 250 offices around the country offering general advice on running a business.

The lesson to be learned from the Business Link model was this: if you created the facility for people to get access to the services they needed at prices they could afford, they would come along willingly.Looking much further ahead, Mr Evans believes that the successful solicitors of the f uture will be those who are prepared to think very innovatively about the delivery of legal services.

He speaks glowingly of the achievements of insurance industry supremo Peter Woods, who caused a revolution in that industry with his Direct Line service.

'What [Mr Woods] successfully did was to reckon that for the ordinary customer it was a price sensitive business and if [insurers] were able to offer services at a price which was acceptable and the deal made swiftly there would be a range of additional business from that.'And what are the parallels with the legal profession? He hastens to point out that he is not saying that the future of the legal profession is direct selling exactly.

But he is saying that the legal success stories of the future will be those which demonstrate innovative Woods-style thinking.For now, Mr Evans' advice to the profession is to get franchised.

He was impressed to learn recently from the Legal Aid Board that some 25 sole practitioners had franchises.

This went to show that franchising was not just a sport for the big fish.

Another benefit of franchising, says Mr Evans, is that it forces firms to implement much needed modern management techniques.

Firms, initially sceptical, are now experiencing welcome efficiency gains, he adds.As for whether the future of legal aid service delivery will bring block contracting or competitive price tendering, Mr Evans is unable to say with any certainty.

The LCD has not reached any conclusions on the way forward arising from responses to the legal aid green paper.

The major unresolved issues remain how to target legal aid to where there is need and how to provide it within a defined budget.

And while the white paper, expected in the spring, has not been ruled out, the timetable could slip significantly.

'I would have guessed that we would be making an announcement at the end of our period of consultation before the end of the summer, but I cannot be more specific about it at this point,' says Mr Evans.The immediate task is the one for which he was plucked from the DTI: the safe passage of the Family Law Bill.

Mr Evans talks dismissively of the campaign of 'gross misrepresentation' waged in some sectors of the press.

'The perception you might get from looking at one or two of our daily newspapers is that this is unwanted legislation that is being foisted on an unwilling legal profession and public.' As far as the legal profession is concerned, and in particular in relation to solicitors' worries that the Bill's stress on mediation represents a strong threat, Mr Evans has this to say: 'I'm afraid sometimes that proposals for change are viewed within the context of what new job opportunities are there.

It would be wrong for [solicitors] to view divorce law reform as being a means of ensuring that there is additional work for lawyers.'However, if he were a divorce lawyer -- he has never, incidentally, handled a divorce -- he would be looking at how to add mediation services to his practice as, he notes, a number are already doing.Mr Evans was unable to offer any reassurance on one point that has been worrying to solicitors.

The concern has been that while solicitors would be obliged to alert clients at the outset to the existence of mediation, a reciprocal obligation would not apply to mediators.

According to the minister such a move would 'strike against the concept we are trying to develop which is to promote the idea that people [should] go down the mediation route'.

However just days after this interview the Lord Chancellor announced that in legally aided cases mediators would indeed be obliged to flag up legal services.