Robert Heslett urges the profession to prepare for change (see [2009] Gazette, 18 June, 12), but says little about precisely what it should do. He also highlights a long-standing concern about how new entrants can be imbued with the ethics of the profession. As he is aware, we have been working on that issue for the past couple of years but we will need the profession’s support if we are to improve the situation.

Elsewhere in the same edition, the Gazette offers different answers to some of the questions raised by the vice-president. On legal costs, while he thinks we are reasonable, the report on the conference of the Association of Corporate Counsel Europe repeats longstanding complaints about hourly rates as the basis for charging. If this is going to die, as Lewis Silkin partner Michael Burd suggests, then let us work together to establish a better basis.

Mr Heslett’s relentlessly upbeat piece continues – the profession has not resisted ‘best business practice’. Yet turn back to p4 and the short piece on the review of legal regulation by Lord Hunt reports how private equity firms are beating a path to his door to tell him how they can hardly wait to get into law firms to profit from despatching our ‘appalling business practices’.

Both Bob Heslett and Lord Hunt have been in the profession for a very long time. That provides valuable experience and shows their real passion for the job and the people. But it also makes it hard for them to form an objective view. Please don’t tell us everything is fine and dandy; we know it isn’t. The profession will change radically over the next five years. Billing practices, human resource management, remuneration, performance review, equality and diversity, our patchy ability to understand our clients and to meet their needs, together with our lamentable failure to commit to lifelong learning – all seem likely to be on a list of desirable changes. The profession needs to get real if it is to meet the challenge.

With excellent leadership and a willingness to change, we may avoid having the guts ripped out of the profession in 2011. If change is left to market forces, it is bound to hurt the weak more than the strong and the profession’s reputation will suffer again.

Sue Nelson, Law Society Council member, City of Westminster