Why, since the Law Society’s regulatory function passed to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, should we as a profession (in common with our brethren at the bar) be overseen by so many authoritarian organisations which we are compelled to fund?

Surely both the ombudsman and the Legal Services Board are superfluous. As a consequence of tripartite responsibility shared by the Treasury, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England, the banking industry nearly collapsed, since ‘the buck never stopped here’.

Heaven forbid that the same should be true of our profession. But it is about time that proportionality prevailed.

Sandie Graff, Graff & Redfern, Richmond, Surrey