Annual conferences are a time for taking stock, for standing back and assessing the bigger picture.

So what would solicitors who attended the Law Society's annual event in Manchester last weekend have come away with? For most, the answer has to be reasons to be more cheerful than at any time over this decade.President Tony Girling's address to the conference was a concerted attempt to boost confidence, to lift the spirits of a profession that has been battling under fierce commercial pressures at a ti me when its public image is not good.Mr Girling's speech went down well because the inspirational tone was backed up with examples of real opportunities available to solicitors wise enough to grasp them.

For the high street solicitor anxious to take advantage of an improving conveyancing market, there was news that the Law Society was reviewing urgently the practice rules that impede property selling.

For those solicitors anxious to streamline their practices but not knowing where to start as far as technology is concerned, there was welcome news of help from the Society.

The Society's High Street Starter Kit is currently being piloted and is due to be launched early next year.

For solicitors anxious to practise advocacy in the higher courts, there was hopeful news that the means of qualification might be less arduous in the foreseeable future.

For firms faced with the threat of what the President termed 'Armageddon-level' claims, there was news that the Department of Trade and Industry was being pressed to introduce a limited liability partnership law.

For women, who will have been alarmed to learn of the survey results showing pay discrimination, there was at least the welcome commitment by the Society to exhort the profession to review pay practices.

The Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf, also had words of encouragement for solicitors, particularly those on the high street.

Lord Woolf, who has spent the last two years examining the civil justice system, said the high street solicitor was essential to its proper administration.

He went on to point out how through the use of technology that would provide access to specialist sources of law, high street solicitors could secure their futures.

There was new evidence from questions asked at various sessions that solicitors were prepared to grasp the opportunities.

They were asking 'how' rather than 'why'.

There was also evidence of a new mood from Chancery Lane with earnest promises from the President that the Society would be more responsive to solicitors' needs from now on.The conference was not marked by boundless optimism but at least the heavy gloom of recent years seemed to have disappeared.