'If you wish in the world to advance,Your merits you're bound to enhance,You must stir it and stump it,And blow your own trumpet,Or, trust me, you haven't a chance!'(WS Gilbert, Ruddigore, Act 1).WS Gilbert was a lawyer by profession and a barrister of the Inner Temple.

Lawyers feature in many of the Savoy operas, perhaps not surprisingly in view of Gilbert's view - at least as expressed by the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe - that:'The law is the true embodimentOf everything that's excellent,It has no kind of fault or flaw,And I, my Lords, embody the law.'In 1882, when Iolanthe was first produced, lawyers in general were probably no more popular than they are today.

However, I suggest that almost all members of the profession were then not only respected by society but also proud of their profession: I find it sad that so many solicitors in 1995 seem to have lost all sense of pride and self respect.The solicitors' profession seems now unwilling, or unable, to 'blow its own trumpet' as a profession rather than as individuals, and too many solicitors seem to enjoy denigrating their own profession and often as publicly as possible.

If solicitors appear to be ashamed of being solicitors, is it surprising that the public and Parliament increasingly fail to give the profession the respect which it continues to deserve?This attitude contrasts vividly with that of the Bar, whose leaders continue to be showered with knighthoods and peerages and who are regularly invited by the government to chair tribunals and inquiries.

I do not accept that the skill of QCs and the senior judiciary is not matched by similar expertise in very many solicitors in major practices, not only in London but also in major cities throughout t he land and also in a number of small niche practices.Notwithstanding the enormous importance of solicitors' advice in contributing to the country's invisible exports and preserving justice, should one not expect greater recognition from the government for solicitors? With the well earned exceptions of Mr Justice Sachs' knighthood - on his being appointed the (so far) sole solicitor High Court judge - and the CBE awarded to John Hayes in the new year's honours list, I believe no major honour has been awarded to a solicitor for service to the law since Sir Richard Gaskell was knighted in 1989.

Apparently the years of voluntary service, often over 15 or 20 years, by subsequent presidents are considered of no consequence, whilst knighthoods are awarded automatically to High Court judges and back bench members of the governing party.Solicitors not only serve their clients to obtain justice but often also give of their time in voluntary work and seem to receive no recognition for their efforts.

The Bar, with a membership of less than 7000, pays a salary to the Chairman of the Bar each year equivalent to that of a High Court judge (ie approximately £90,000).When a proposal was put to the solicitors' profession last year that the partners of a President of the Law Society should receive a similar sum in recompense for the President's loss of earning capacity during his year in office - not a salary but a contribution towards the firm's overheads - the profession rejected such a proposal.

This was a decision by a profession with a membership over ten times that of the Bar.

This would have added less than £2 per head to each annual practising certificate.Not only was the proposal rejected but the outcome of the vote appeared to be greeted with glee by many solicitors who viewed the decision as a victory over the 'fat cats' on the Law Society Council.

Few solicitors appear to have appreciated that the proposal was put forward to facilitate the election of Presidents from smaller firms, which might otherwise be unable to bear the costs of losing a prime fee-earner.Another example of the 'us and them' stance is to be found in the attitude of the profession to the Law Society's compensation fund and the Solicitors Complaints Bureau.

As chairman of the adjudication and appeals committee during the last two-and-a-half years, I admit an interest but I remain of the view, which seems sadly not to be shared by the profession generally, that the compensation fund and the bureau are facets of the Law Society about which the profession should 'blow its own trumpet'.

The combination of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund, the compensation fund and the bureau provides a protection for the public which I believe to be unparalleled and of which the profession is entitled to be rightly proud.When a solicitor is found to have acted dishonestly and the public has lost money, the public receive reimbursement from SIF or the compensation fund to which all solicitors have contributed.

In other words, the default by a dishonest solicitor is put right by his or her innocent and honest competitors within the profession up to a maximum of £1 million per claim.

Compare this with the position of investors in BCCI, who received a maximum of £15,000 from the equivalent fund supported by the clearing banks, or by investors with members of the Securities and Investment Board who are entitled to maximum compensation of £48,000.

And this SIB scheme is government-approved!What other profession provides an expensive and highly qualified body equivalent to the bureau to deal with complaints of over-charging or inadequate professional services (ie shoddy work)? If you are dissatisfied with repairs to your car, or the work of your plumber, you can find relief only in the courts.

In contrast, the solicitors' profession provides, through the bureau, a free arbitration scheme of which solicitors are compulsory members but which (like the Legal Aid Board) has no friends.Nothing seems to please solicitors more than to complain about the cost of the compensation fund and the bureau and about its alleged inefficiencies.

Too many solicitors greeted with acclaim the report by the National Consumer Council without understanding the flawed methodology on which its research was based and its conclusions reached, or the probable cost to the profession of its proposals.Are there any objective tests of the efficiency of the bureau? Indeed, there are.

During my term as chairman, solicitors have exercised their statutory rights to appeal against decisions by the adjudication and appeals committee and assistant directors to the Master of the Rolls and have applied for judicial review of decisions by the committee in over 20 cases.

I believe it says much for the skill and care with which the committee and directors reach their decisions that their conclusions have been upheld on almost every occasion.Similarly, and contrary to the impression given by headlines in the legal press two or three weeks ago, over 95% of decisions by the committee to remit solicitors to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal have been justified by a subsequent decision by the tribunal to strike off, suspend or fine the solicitor in question.In addition, only a small number of complainants to the bureau have appealed against decisions to the legal services ombudsman and in only a very small number of cases has the ombudsman disagreed with conclusions reached by the bureau.

He has, I admit, had cause to complain about delay on some occasions but neither I nor the bureau have claimed it to be infallible and if we delay we must apologise.

Nevertheless, this record of decision-making is again something of which I, for one, am proud and I would invite the profession to join me - for its own good - in seeking to restore its pride in itself.