We need legal aid

I am 32.

I am depressed.

I am a partner in a three-partner 20-fee earner high street firm.

I have just spent a long day dealing with the Legal Services Commission's auditors.

Before they came, they asked for more than 300 files to be made ready for audit.

When I protested, they reduced the list to a mere 144.

It took two members of staff most of a day to get these out of storage and arrange them in order in a room we had set aside for the purpose.

The auditors looked at seven files and we passed.We are so disillusioned with legal aid I would not have minded if we had failed.

We have had a franchise for five years and have CLS contract.

We are about to apply for accreditation to Lexcel and Investors in People.

We have a team of committed and experienced legal aid solicitors who are members of the family, children and mental health panels.

We are doing all the things we have been encouraged to do and yet still our legal aid fee earners barely pay their way.

You can get a legally-aided divorce for less than you pay to have your washing machine repaired.

If we do not renew our contract next year, there will be a yawning gap in 'access' in north Cornwall.When I got home, I read this week's Gazette.

The lead article tells me 'Legal Aid clients hit out at solicitors' above a picture of Lord Irvine, Cherie Booth and Esther Rantzen at the CLS launch (can anyone tell me what the CLS actually is in words that mean something?) and that US firms in London are about to pay newly qualified solicitors 100,000 a year.I really wonder why I bother.Daniel Sproull, Sproulls, Bodmin